' 


V 


LORD   ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 


IWJt.  OF  CALIF.  LIBRARY.  LOS  ANGELES 


LORD 
ALINGHAM 

BANKRUPT 

By 
MARIE    MANNING 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,  MEAD   &  COMPANY 
MDCCCCII 


Copyright,  igo2,  by  DODD, 
MEAD    AND    COMPANY 


First  edition  published  April,  1902 


UNIVERSITY  PRESS    •    JOHN   WILSON 
AND    SON    •    CAMBRIDGE,  U.S.  A. 


To  H.  S. 


2131728 


CONTENTS 


BOOK   ONE 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    Through  English  Monocles i 

II.    The  Intervention  of  Progressive  Journalism,  some- 
times Called  "  Yellow " 8 

III.  Containing  the  Reflections  of  a   Prodigal,   and  a 

Theatrical   Encounter 13 

IV.  «  Extr' ordinarily  Small  Place  —  the  World  !  "  .        25 
V.    "The  Matrimonial  Limited  to  Prosperity"  .      .        34 

VI.    "  London  Meant  the  Deluge  and  the  Deluge  Was 

at  Hand" 41 

VII.    In  the  Eleventh  Hour  of  Adversity     ....        49 
VIII.    A  Day  in  the  Life  of  a  Well- Preserved  Gentleman        56 

IX.    In  Which  Two  Ladies  Employ  Many  Words  for 

the  Purpose  of  Concealing  Thought     ...        66 

X.    Containing  Some  Mediaeval  History  and  a  Sordid 

Modern  Dilemma 82 

XI.    Some  Painful  Makeshifts  of  an  Aristocratic  Family        92 

vii 


CONTENTS 


XII.    The  Star  Effects  a  Carefully  Delayed  Entrance     .  98 

XIII.  Mrs.  Gordon  Studies  Graphology  with  a  Purpose  108 

XIV.  The  Tossing  of  a  Coin  Decides  Several  Important 

Matters 114 

XV.    Love  Strains  at  the  Leash  of  Prudence      .      .      .  136 

XVI.    The  Tormenting  Clairvoyance  of  Love     .      .      .  154 

XVII.    A  Situation  Contrived  by  the  Management  Proves 

Fruitless 161 

XVIII.    A  Proposal  Minus  Thought-Transference       .      .  168 

XIX.    Containing    Some   Talk    of  an    Impending  An- 
nouncement       176 

XX.    The  Antipodal  Anguish  of  a  Midnight  Conference  184 

XXI.    Uncle  Reginald  Explains  Business  to  a  Prospective 

Niece 192 

BOOK    TWO  — FIVE  YEARS  LATER 

XXII.    The  "  Arrival"  of  Mrs.  Hennessy    .      .      .      .  201 

XXIII.  A  Chance  Samaritan 215 

XXIV.  A  Prairie  Point  of  View 230 

XXV.    Where  the  World  Looks  Young 247 

XXVI.    To  Go,  or  not  to  Go  ?........  274 


Vlll 


LORD   ALINGHAM 

EANKR UPT 
OBoofe  €>ne 

CHAPTER    I 
THROUGH   ENGLISH   MONOCLES 

I  HE  "  Calabria"  lacked  but  half  an  hour  of 
her  sailing  time;  dense  blackness  belched 
from  her  stacks  and  floated  wide  across  the 
bay  in  smoky  pennants.  It  was  September,  and  out 
of  season  for  the  eastward  trip,  and  the  first-cabin 
passengers  were  few,  and  not  of  the  class  who  occupy 
deck  staterooms  and  depend  largely  on  their  own 
private  supplies  for  sustenance.  Under  the  circum- 
stances, the  white-capped,  brass-buttoned  contingent 
below  stairs  was  less  obtrusively  active  than  usual ; 
it  did  not  promise  to  be  a  voyage  of  large  bounties. 

On  the  forward  deck  a  party  of  tourists  —  booked 
for  six  weeks  of  European  culture  at  three  hundred 
dollars  per  head  —  were  unconsciously  demonstrating 
that  it  was  their  maiden  trip  by  the  helpless  way  they 
stood  about  waiting  for  something  to  happen,  now 
that  they  had  really  started.  Their  friends  who 
had  come  to  see  them  off  seemed  stricken  with  the 
same  poverty  of  resource,  and  beyond  much  urging 
to  "  Take  care  of  yourself;"  could  think  of  nothing  to 
I  I 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

do  or  say.  At  the  sound  of  a  bell  or  the  blast  of  a 
whistle  the  tourist  escort  would  rush  to  the  gang- 
way, only  to  return,  smiling  and  embarrassed,  on 
being  assured  by  some  one  in  brass  buttons  that  they 
still  had  another  five  minutes. 

The  younger  of  two  Englishmen,  who  for  some 
minutes  had  been  watching  with  indulgent  tolerance 
these  brilliant  dashes  for  the  shore,  remarked  in 
unmistakable  Mayfair  accents: 

"I've  always  understood  that  that  sort  of  American 
lived  on  tarts.  One  could  n't  possibly  sprint  like 
that  on  tarts  at  home.  Most  extr'ordinary  people." 

It  was  characteristic  of  the  older  man  to  resent 
anything  like  chaff  in  the  morning  as  he  would 
have  resented  beer  on  the  breakfast-table.  He  waved 
a  bony  and  aristocratic  hand,  to  dismiss  the  entire 
subject,  —  America,  her  tarts,  her  trippers,  —  and 
said  with  as  much  enthusiasm  as  he  ever  permitted 
himself: 

"  One  week  more,  and  then  —  Piccadilly.  Fancy 
living  in  a  country  where  one  can't  even  get  a  sole  for 
breakfast.  Call  for  sole,  —  they  give  you  flounder." 
A  lifting  of  the  shoulders,  almost  Gallic  in  signifi- 
cance, expressed  his  bitter  recollection  of  the  loss 
of  identity  of  so  important  an  item  in  an  English- 
man's daily  menu. 

Lord  Alingham  judiciously  considered  the  dearth 
of  soles  in  the  States  before  replying:    "  Y-e-s,  — 
but  their  little-neck  clams  and  women  are  adorable." 

"  The  little-necks  I  admit.  Their  women  have 
become  our  women  to  such  an  extent  that  we  have 
had  to  make  their  beauty  an  article  of  faith." 

2 


THROUGH    ENGLISH    MONOCLES 

"  A  Victorian  courtesy  order  conferred  for  moneys 
advanced  to  a  distressed  aristocracy  ?  "  inquired  his 
Lordship,  dryly. 

"  Exactly,"  grinned  the  Honourable  Reginald 
Howard ;  "  all  rich  American  girls  are  beautiful  by 
the  grace  of  God  and  the  will  of  impecunious  Eng- 
lishmen.—  There  goes  the  gangway,  and  we  shall 
be  home  in  time  for  plenty  of  good  shooting,"  he 
added  with  a  little  burst  of  satisfaction,  as  the  last 
mail-sack  was  hauled  up,  and  the  stately  liner  began 
to  steam  slowly  down  the  bay.  His  rheumatism  and 
gout  had  kept  him  off  the  moors  for  the  last  ten 
years,  yet,  at  a  reasonably  safe  distance  from  a 
grouse,  he  never  lost  an  opportunity  to  bewail  the 
loss  of  a  day's  sport. 

"  Does  n't  it  impress  you  as  singular,"  said  Lord 
Alingham,  looking  furtively  about  him,  —  "the 
way  Americans  leave  their  luxurious  houses  for 
months  at  a  time  and  live  in  dreary  little  lodgings 
off  Piccadilly?  In  fact,  they  never  seem  to  feel  at 
home  unless  they  are  travelling." 

"  Is  that  a  bull  or  an  epigram  ?  " 

"  But  an  epigram  is  a  trained  bull." 

"It's  all  too  exacting  for  e very-day  wear;  their 
houses,  their  crests,  their  money,  are  all  too  com- 
plicated and  colossal.  No  wonder  they  like  to  run 
over  to  England  for  a  little  simplicity  —  and  inci- 
dentally, to  leave  their  daughters  —  " 

He  looked  away  in  sudden  confusion,  but  there 
was  no  sign  that  the  shaft  had  hit  home.  Lord 
Alingham's  tone  was  comfortably  languorous  as  he 
drawled : 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

"  There  is  somewhat  of  a  '  round-the-world-in- 
eighty-days  '  effect  about  their  houses,  now  that  you 
mention  it.  They  seem  unable  to  make  a  home 
without  introducing  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe, 
the  middle  ages,  the  apostles,  the  red  Indians,  the 
salon  —  and  anything  else  that  costs  money." 

"  It 's  not  singular  they  can't  live  in  the  places 
they  have  spent  fortunes  on.  Who  could  stand  a 
tamed  and  domesticated  Cook's  tour?" 

"  And,  speaking  of  crests,  do  you  suppose  that 
story  we  heard  at  the  Knickerbocker,  the  other  night, 
about  their  buying  their  crests  at  the  stationer's,  like 
so  much  sealing-wax  or  ink,  was  true?  I  can  never 
quite  tell  whether  they  are  in  earnest  or  chaffing." 

"  I  don't  doubt  it  in  the  least,  my  dear  boy. 
Everything  in  the  States  is  reduced  to  a  commercial 
basis.  We  support  our  Heralds'  College  with  its 
traditions,  —  they  support  their  Tiffany  with  their 
cash." 

"  By  Jove,"  laughed  Lord  Alingham,  "  they  do 
work  the  Heraldic  Zoo  to  a  finish.  I  used  to  be 
afraid  to  open  my  mail  in  the  morning,  the  way 
their  symbolic  beasts,  birds,  and  fishes  would  leap 
at  my  throat.  However,  the  more  American  girls 
Tiffany  proves  I  'm  cousin  to,  the  better,  —  if  I  may 
claim  a  cousin's  privileges." 

"  My  word,  with  all  due  deference  to  the  con- 
ventional loveliness  of  American  women,  there  's  no 
one  here  I  would  care  to  claim  as  kin." 

The  lady-trippers,  who  had  retired  to  their  state- 
rooms immediately  after  sailing,  in  the  firm  con- 
viction that  nautical  life  demands  certain  tribute  in 

4 


THROUGH    ENGLISH    MONOCLES 

the  matter  of  costume,  now  reappeared  on  deck  in 
an  assortment  of  blue  veils,  travelling-caps,  and 
shabby  furs  that  seemed  to  have  all  the  sorrows  of 
homeless  tabbies.  They  began  to  absorb  guide- 
books and  salt  air  with  an  aggressive  eagerness  that 
left  no  room  for  doubt  that  culture,  both  mental 
and  physical,  was  the  object  of  their  trip. 

"  You  are  not  quite  fair,  my  dear  Reggie.  You 
would  not  ask  an  American  to  judge  Englishwomen 
by  a  Bank  Holiday  crowd." 

She  came  through  the  companionway  as  if  to 
reward  this  alien  champion  for  his  defence  of  her 
countrywomen's  beauty.  She  was  tall  and  broad- 
shouldered,  —  a  woman  who  could  wear  ermine  as 
if  she  had  a  right  to  it.  She  swept  toward  them 
with  deliberate  grace.  She  had  the  distinction  of 
a  racing  yacht  at  full  sail  on  a  winning  breeze. 
There  was  no  time  for  detail.  The  force  of  the 
flyer  was  irresistible.  Both  men  unconsciously 
paid  her  the  tribute  of  a  more  alert  attitude,  and 
when  the  last  flutter  of  her  skirts  had  disappeared 
around  the  bow,  they  involuntarily  relaxed.  It  was 
almost  as  if  a  member  of  the  Royal  Family  had 
passed. 

"  By  Jove,"  said  the  Honourable  Mr.  Howard, 
"  it 's  marvellous  where  they  get  it ;  that  sort  of 
thing  could  not  be  done  at  home  in  less  than  six 
generations." 

Half  an  hour  later,  when  Lord  Alingham  and  the 
Honourable  Mr.  Howard  discovered  that  she  sat 
next  to  them  at  the  Captain's  table,  they  felt  them- 
selves in  luck  —  but  really,  Providence  and  the  Head 

5 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

Steward  could  hardly  do  less  for  such  distinguished 
passengers. 

The  Captain's  "  Good-morning,  Mrs.  Gordon," 
upset  their  mental  filing  of  the  lady  and  her  affairs. 
From  their  preconceived  point  of  view,  it  seemed 
unaccountable  that  so  handsome  a  girl  could  be 
going  to  England  on  any  other  errand  than  that 
of  spending  the  parental  dollars  and  eventually 
marrying  an  Englishman ;  so  firm  was  their  faith 
in  American  social  conditions  as  they  are  portrayed 
on  the  English  stage  and  in  English  weeklies,  that 
they  were  already  generously  reconciled  to  the 
impossible  mother  who  would  breakfast  in  diamonds, 
and  the  millionaire  father  who  would  wear  a  chin- 
whisker  and  speak  the  Americanese  of  the  London 
music-halls.  But  there  was  no  suggestion  of  low- 
comedy  parents  with  vast  wealth  and  meagre  gram- 
mar, in  the  wake  of  Mrs.  Gordon.  Neither  was  there 
a  model  of  marital  acquiescence  in  the  person  of  Mr. 
Gordon,  American  husband,  nor  yet  a  wedding  ring 
on  the  white  restless  hand  that  looked  unable  to 
hold  even  a  small  measure  of  content,  the  liberality 
of  the  gods  notwithstanding. 

The  Honourable  Mr.  Howard  scanned  the  pas- 
senger list  and  read  the  simple  announcement  "  Mrs. 
Elizabeth  Gordon."  "  Neither  hyphen  nor  initials ! 
She  can't  be  an  American ! " 

She  was  travelling  with  a  Miss  Dean,  who  during 
the  progress  of  the  meal  proved  to  be  her  cousin. 
Miss  Dean  had  the  fly-about,  tawny  hair  that  looks 
better  in  disorder  than  when  tamed  with  comb  and 
hairpins.  It  blew  about  her  face  in  crisply  waving 

6 


THROUGH    ENGLISH    MONOCLES 

strands,  and  more  than  reconciled  one  to  the  fine 
powdering  of  light  freckles  that  were  distributed 
over  a  face  half  saucy,  half  sad. 

"  Don't    look    so    distressed    about    your   coffee, 
dear,"  Lord  Alingham  heard  her  say  to  her  cousin. 
"  Remember   you   are   travelling   with   a   line   that 
never  lost  a  life." 

"  They  are  welcome  to  mine  as  a  record-breaker," 
said  Mrs.  Gordon,  helping  herself  to  the  best  peach 
in  the  dish,  after  the  manner  of  people  who  have 
no  interest  in  things  mundane. 

There  was  also  at  the  Captain's  table  a  lady  from 
Topeka  who  wore  a  blue  satin  shirt-waist  and  who 
felt  her  patriotism  soar  beyond  control  at  the  mere 
passive  presence  of  the  two  Englishmen.  Breakfast 
was  an  idle  form  to  her  till  she  had  extorted  from 
Lord  Alingham  the  confession  that  ice  water  was 
comparatively  unknown  on  English  tables,  and  that 
he  had  never  seen  high  office  buildings  before  he 
came  to  New  York.  Then,  apparently  satisfied  that 
she  had  done  her  duty  to  her  God  and  her  country, 
she  gave  her  undivided  attention  to  chops  and  blue- 
fish. 

The  Honourable  Reginald  Howard,  though  he 
was  once  more  eating  sole  beneath  the  British  flag, 
was  not  altogether  happy.  Flounder  had  so  often 
been  his  portion  in  New  York,  that  even  now  he 
had  his  misgivings,  the  flutter  of  the  Union  Jack 
notwithstanding. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE   INTERVENTION   OF   PROGRESSIVE  JOUR- 
NALISM,  SOMETIMES   CALLED   "YELLOW" 

THE  Honourable  Reginald  Howard  was  a 
widower  of  some  eighteen  months'  nicely 
graduated  grief.  During  the  first  black 
enshrouded  days  of  his  bereavement  he  had  mourned 
even  to  the  exclusion  of  wearing  patent  leather  shoes. 
But  of  late  there  was  creeping  into  his  wardrobe  a 
black-and-white  resignation,  at  once  submissive,  — 
nay,  almost  cheerful.  Despite  the  fact  that  the  late 
Mrs.  Howard  was  remembered  even  in  his  travelling- 
rug,  their  life  together  had  belonged  to  that  marital 
classification  known  as  cat-and-dog.  But  no  sooner 
had  the  cat  laid  down  the  ninth  of  her  sorely  tor- 
mented lives  than  all  the  black  stuff  in  London 
could  not  do  justice  to  the  dog's  grief. 

In  appearance  the  Honourable  Mr.  Howard  was 
a  clean-bred  aristocrat,  lean,  aquiline,  delicately  fin- 
ished. In  the  matter  of  age  he  pleaded  guilty  to 
fifty-two  with  such  ingenuousness  that  the  lenient 
judge  was  apt  to  let  him  off  with  an  extra  ten 
years.  He  had  an  ambition  to  be  considered  a  "  sad 
dog,"  —  a  perennial  Don  Juan,  who,  like  wine, 
improved  with  age.  And  while  his  doctor  con- 
demned him  to  a  diet  mainly  consisting  of  charcoal 

8   " 


PROGRESSIVE    JOURNALISM 

biscuits  and  mineral  water,  he  made  a  great  point 
of  ostentatiously  ordering  unwholesome  food  and 
then  condemning  it  on  epicurean  grounds. 

His  chief  hobby  was  pride  of  lineage:  that  he 
was  the  sole  survivor  who  could  consistently  boast 
a  drop  of  Plantagenet  blood,  was  his  fixed  con- 
viction, and  while  the  Heralds'  College  granted  him, 
together  with  nineteen  others,  the  right  to  use  the 
Plantagenet  quarterings,  he  could  prove,  if  one  could 
spare  him  the  requisite  number  of  years,  that  the 
right  belonged  to  him  alone,  and  that  the  other 
nineteen  were  interlopers. 

In  the  book  that  has  been  described  as  "  the  best 
thing  the  English  have  ever  done  in  fiction  "  you 
will  find  that  the  present  head  of  the  house  of 
Alingham  is  Baron  Arthur  Charles  Stuart  Seymour, 

of  ,  County  — ,  United  Kingdom,  born 

February  16,  1870.  And  then  follows  a  dissertation 
on  the  family  of  Alingham,  its  ancient  descent  and 
much  that  is  not  to  the  point  of  this  story.  Suffice 
to  say  that  Baron  Arthur  Charles  —  and  all  the 
rest  of  it  —  was  sailing  away  from  New  York,  fully 
convinced  that  his  ruin  had  been  wrought  by  the 
"  yellow  "  journalism  of  the  States,  and  that  some- 
thing ought  to  be  done  to  suppress  the  American 
editor,  his  work  and  enterprise. 

Lord  Alingham  was  big  and  blond,  with  a  com- 
plexion that  had  mocked  the  ravages  of  brandy-and- 
soda  for  years.  There  was  a  legend  at  the  "  Bache- 
lors "  to  the  effect  that  H.  R.  H.  had  once  said  to 
Alingham,  in  a  burst  of  after-dinner  geniality,  that 
he  ought  to  cultivate  a  flaw,  as  he  was  too  good- 

9 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

looking  for  anything  but  the  hero  of  a  "  shilling 
shocker."  Alingham  straightway  promised,  like  the 
loyal  Briton  he  was,  to  drown  his  beauty  in  brandy- 
and-soda,  but  it  continued  to  remain  as  proverbial 
as  his  capacity  for  the  antidote. 

It  was  always  a  moot  question  whether  his  Lord- 
ship's financial  constitution  went  to  pieces  on  the 
spicy  diet  of  the  Gaiety  Theatre  or  contracted  rapid 
consumption  in  the  heart  of  Mayfair.  Suffice  to 
say,  that  his  bankruptcy  was  an  established  fact, 
and  he  became  a  member  of  that  coterie  of  failures 
who  serve  to  point  the  necessary  moral  to  all  good 
little  English  boys  who  are  disposed  to  rail  at  the 
meagreness  of  the  parental  dole.  There  was  also 
some  distressing  talk,  just  before  the  bankruptcy, 
about  a  threatened  breach-of-promise  suit  and  a 
young  person  who  sang  something  about  "  High 
Tiddle  Tiddle "  at  the  Halls.  But  everyone  was 
heartily  thankful  that  the  rumour  amounted  to 
nothing,  —  that  is,  heartily  thankful  after  the  manner 
of  people  who  discuss  every  phase  of  every  scandal. 

Seeing  that  his  chances  of  making  a  good  match 
at  home  were  limited,  his  mother,  his  uncle  Regi- 
nald, and  the  family  solicitor  rallied  about  him  and 
begged  him,  for  the  honour  of  the  family,  for  his 
name,  for  his  sisters'  marriage  portions,  and  for 
everything  else  in  the  domestic  litan)^  that  he  held 
sacred,  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  States,  where  rich  girls 
were  a-plenty  and  no  questions  were  asked  of  the 
titled. 

As  poor  Lord  Alingham  had  an  undeniable  talent 
for  getting  himself  into  mischief,  and  could  never 

10 


PROGRESSIVE   JOURNALISM 

be  trusted  to  manage  his  own  affairs,  his  uncle,  the 
Honourable  Reginald  Howard,  undertook  to  accom- 
pany him  to  the  States  as  envoy  extraordinary  of  the 
Alingham  family.  And  for  a  time  it  looked  as  if 
his  Lordship,  under  the  diplomatic  machinations  of 
his  uncle,  would  receive  the  coveted  seven  figures,  the 
net  price  demanded  at  home  for  his  titles.  But  they 
had  reckoned  without  the  New  York  press. 

His  acquaintance  with  the  daughter  of  a  multi- 
millionaire had  progressed  to  the  point  where  an 
Englishman  feels  justified  in  discussing  his  mother's 
favourite  brand  of  tea,  and  subjects  of  similar 
sacredness,  when  a  Sunday  paper  turned  out  its 
space-filling  pack  in  full  cry  against  him.  The 
American  public  was  asked  in  flaring  headlines  if 
a  bankrupt  Lord  was  worth  $5,000,000.  The  con- 
tention that  had  pleasantly  agitated  London,  as  to 
whether  it  was  Mayfair  or  St.  Johns'  Wood  that  had 
proved  the  ditch  of  the  undoing,  was  revived  with 
this  difference,  —  that  the  Sunday  paper  gave  equal 
credit  to  both  localities  as  factors  in  his  Lordship's 
bankruptcy,  whereas  London  gossip  had  wavered 
between  the  two.  Alingham  was  described  as  a 
degenerate  who  could  get  no  one  in  his  own  country 
to  marry  him.  There  was  a  graphic  cartoon  showing 
bevies  of  English  girls  pointing  the  finger  of  scorn 
at  him,  their  titles  and  nationality  being  indicated 
by  coronets  resembling  the  royal  insignia  of  the 
stage.  There  was  also  a  chapter  of  vivacious  venom 
devoted  to  the  family  history  of  the  multi-millionaire, 
wherein  it  was  shown  that  the  nest  egg  of  the  family 
millions  had  been  laid  as  the  result  of  a  happy 

II 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

speculation  in  mouse-traps.  The  attack  relied  for 
its  backbone  on  a  tabulated  account  of  the  number 
of  millions  that  had  gone  out  of  the  country  within 
the  past  five  years  as  the  portions  of  American  girls 
who  had  married  titles,  and  the  ill  uses  to  which 
such  moneys  had  been  put. 

A  rival  paper,  not  to  be  behindhand,  took  the 
matter  up,  and  subpoenaed  the  American  eagle  and 
the  Pilgrim  Fathers  to  witness  its  sorrows  at  having 
exclusively  to  inform  the  public  that  another  Ameri- 
can girl  would  take  millions  of  dollars  out  of  the 
country.  The  first  paper  returned  to  the  attack  by 
publishing  portraits  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  and  their  probable  opinion  on  the 
subject  had  they  not  died  before  it  was  asked.  And 
so  his  Lordship's  past  became  the  subject  of  a  bitter 
newspaper  rivalry,  and  the  rhetoric  of  Park  Row 
won  the  day  against  the  peer  and  his  ambitions. 

The  father  of  the  girl  who  hoped  to  be  My  Lady 
was  terribly  afraid  of  the  quill.  "  No  damn  Dukes," 
he  thundered,  waving  the  latest  edition  on  the  sub- 
ject; "a  plain  every-day  American  is  good  enough 
for  us."  His  knowledge  of  the  peerage  was  of  the 
vaguest,  and  he  imagined  the  English  Duke  occurred 
with  the  frequency  of  the  Kentucky  colonel.  To 
face  New  York  society  as  the  bull's  eye  on  which 
two  progressive  papers  had  tried  their  crack  marks- 
men, was  not  to  Lord  Alingham's  taste ;  he  engaged 
passage  on  the  next  out-going  steamer,  and  twelve 
of  his  Lordship's  seventeen  "  boxes "  were  never 
opened  on  American  soil,  except  by  the  custom-house 
officials. 

12 


CHAPTER   III 

CONTAINING  THE    REFLECTIONS   OF   A   PRODI- 
GAL,  AND   A  THEATRICAL   ENCOUNTER 

THE  ship  see-sawed  through  the  night, 
cleaving  the  blackness  with  broad  white 
sweep.  Lights  from  within  threw  long 
washy  reflections  of  yellow  on  the  wet  deck,  —  the 
one  human  note  in  the  sombre  nocturne  of  sea  and 
sky.  The  wind  wailed  fitfully  and  was  still,  then 
shrieked  and  sobbed  again  in  hopeless  grief. 

"  It 's  a  banshee  in  at  my  finish,"  decided  Aling- 
ham;  with  which  reflection  he  turned  up  his  coat 
collar  and  lit  a  cigar.  His  sense  of  humour  was 
delicately  tickled  at  times  by  his  recent  failure  to 
adjust  social  liabilities  without  other  assets  than 
those  of  a  fine  old  name  and  an  abundance  of  good 
looks. 

"  Brother  Jonathan  is  no  longer  satisfied  by  reading 
in  Burke  that  his  prospective  son-in-law  is  registered 
stock ;  —  he 's  got  to  be  sure  daughter  can  drive 
him  before  he  '11  hand  over  his  dollars." 

In  the  panic  which  had  followed  the  shattering  of 
his  plans  in  the  States,  as  he  felt  himself  drawn, 
helpless,  into  the  whirlpool  of  misfortunes,  Aling- 
ham's  one  definite  thought  had  been  to  escape  the 
present,  with  its  horrors  of  newspaper  publicity  and 

13 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

personalities ;  —  to  grasp  some  friendly  floating  spar 
and  drift  with  the  tide.  He  was  drifting  back  to  his 
own  world.  London,  Piccadilly,  his  clubs,  his  friends, 
grew  nearer  with  each  advancing  length  of  the  ship. 
The  thought  of  meeting  them  was  like  the  blast  of 
a  furnace  on  burned  flesh.  And  yet  in  the  smoking- 
room  idiots  were  making  bets  about  the  speed  of 
this  grimy  monster  of  the  deep,  and  the  number 
of  days,  hours,  and  minutes  she  would  take  to  bring 
him  to  his  reckoning.  If  time  could  be  petrified, 
and  it  could  always  be  as  now,  —  the  blessed  calm, 
the  lulling  motion  of  the  ship,  and  the  failure  of 
his  life  seen  through  the  blue  haze  of  a  Havana ! 

Oh,  to  wrench  wide  the  clenched  fist  of  fortune, 
to  grasp  a  second  time  the  golden  horde,  to  have  and 
to  hold  by  the  grace  of  bitter  experience!  Never 
again  would  he  fear  a  footpad  in  silken  stockings  and 
high-heeled  slippers.  Cinderella's  twinkling  feet  no 
longer  haunted  him  with  their  mystery:  he  had 
stayed  until  the  magic  slippers  turned  into  old  boots, 
and  thus  reaped  experience,  the  reward  of  constancy. 

But  the  thought  that  stung  him  like  a  thousand 
nettles  was  the  pity  that  awaited  him  as  one  of 
life's  failures.  He  had  had  his  chance  and  he  had 
lost  the  race.  What  a  damnable  figure  to  cut,  —  that 
of  an  eternal  illustration  of  the  follies  of  plunging! 
He  knew  how  it  would  be.  — "  Glad  to  see  you, 
old  man ! "  and  when  his  back  was  turned,  "  A 
man  can't  go  on  like  Alingham,  and  expect  pater- 
familias, even  an  American  paterfamilias,  to  shower 
rice  and  dollars  to  the  tune  of  Lohengrin." 

He  looked  back  along  the  avenue  of  his  life,  down 
14 


REFLECTIONS    OF   A    PRODIGAL 

the  dim  perspective  through  which  the  chubby-faced 
boy  passed  into  manhood ;  and  he  saw  him  jealously 
guarded  at  every  point  until  his  coming  of  age;  and 
it  seemed  to  him  now  that  he  might  have  been  better 
prepared  for  the  liberty,  the  latch-key,  and  the  free- 
dom of  the  city  that  were  then  given  him  as  an 
unquestioned  right,  if  his  previous  privileges  had 
been  other  than  ten  shillings  a  week  and  the  con- 
stant attendance  of  a  tutor.  "  Good  God,  what  was 
to  be  expected  from  such  a  system  but  untold  bitter- 
ness, the  bankruptcy  court,  and  the  beginning  of 
life  over  again  in  the  colonies  ?  " 

The  boat  rolled  heavily;  water  broke  over  her 
bows  and  scattered  into  a  stinging  needle-point 
spray,  and  her  white  wake  stretched  out  eerily  across 
the  blackness  of  the  night.  He  swung  about,  intend- 
ing to  go  below  and  forget  in  the  forgetfulness  that 
is  poured  out  of  a  bottle.  Things  were  bad  enough 
without  staying  there,  courting  bleaker  thoughts. 
The  boat  gave  a  sudden  lurch  that  almost  deprived 
him  of  his  footing,  and  the  next  moment  he  was 
balancing  frantically  to  preserve  his  equilibrium  and 
that  of  the  person  or  persons  into  whom  he  had 
stumbled,  —  a  blinding  shower  of  spray  prevented 
him  from  seeing  clearly.  The  door  of  the  companion- 
way  was  flung  open,  scurrying  skirts  disappeared 
within,  and  by  the  light  that  streamed  through  the 
open  doors  for  a  moment,  he  made  out  that  the 
little  freckle-faced  girl  who  sat  opposite  him  at  the 
table  was  holding  his  arm  in  a  vise.  Not  doubting 
that  the  arm  she  held  belonged  to  Mrs.  Gordon,  of 
whose  ignominious  flight  she  was  unconscious,  Alice 

15 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

Dean  mopped   the  water   from  her   face,   chuckled 
merrily,  and  said : 

"  Good  gracious,  it  was  the  Lord,  and  we  nearly 
upset  him.  My,  doesn't  that  sound  sacrilegious?" 
And  she  chuckled  again. 

Alingham  contemplated  forcibly  freeing  himself 
from  her  grasp,  and  bolting  below  before  she  should 
make  the  awful  discovery.  Meantime  she  had  blinked 
her  eyes  free  from  spray  and  found  herself  clinging 
desperately  to  his  arm.  Both  might  have  been 
standing  there  yet,  petrified  by  the  horror  of  the 
situation,  but  for  another  merciful  lurch  of  the 
vessel  that  again  put  them  on  their  acrobatic  mettle 
and  left  them  grasping  the  deck-rail,  buffeted  by 
wind  and  spray,  laughing  heartily. 

"  I  hope  all  this  tossing  about  has  not  hurt  you 
or  made  you  giddy,"  he  inquired  with  solicitude. 

"  Oh,  I  'm  all  right,"  she  said  with  the  slight 
drawl  and  the  distinct  "  r "  that  come  from  the 
other  side  of  the  Rockies. 

He  was  singularly  susceptible  to  voices.  Hers  was 
deep  and  resonant  with  a  beautiful  singing  quality 
like  a  'cello.  A  most  remarkable  voice  for  a  woman : 
a  full  octave  below  the  usual  feminine  squeak,  and 
subtly  seductive. 

"  I  came  up  here  to  get  a  little  air.  Besides, 
some  one  had  almost  persuaded  a  lady  to  sing.  I 
hate  to  hear  people  sing  when  they  know  how. 
They  make  such  faces  and  seem  to  be  in  pain." 

"  Really?  Then  perhaps  you  'd  like  to  go  forward, 
where  you  can't  hear  it,"  said  Alingham,  feeling  that 
the  situation  was  delightfully  irregular. 

16 


REFLECTIONS    OF   A    PRODIGAL 

"  I  would,"  she  said,  with  appalling  simplicity. 

The  deck  alternately  eluded  and  anticipated  their 
steps.  Progress,  under  the  circumstances,  became 
no  mean  accomplishment,  and  had  it  not  been  for 
Alingham's  able  assistance,  Miss  Dean  would  un- 
doubtedly have  had  to  listen  while  the  lady  pro- 
claimed her  love  "  dark  as  the  night  and  deep  as 
the  sea."  After  the  manner  of  man,  he  was  both 
pleased  and  disappointed  at  the  prompt  way  she 
dropped  his  arm  at  reaching  the  deck-rail,  over 
which  she  leaned  watching  the  black  prow  cut  the 
seething  whiteness. 

The  cowl-like  hood  of  her  long  cloak  had  blown 
back,  and  the  crisply  waved  hair  blew  about  her 
head  in  beautiful  swirling  lines.  The  modelling  of 
the  face  was  absolutely  simple,  —  three  lines  would 
have  drawn  the  profile.  She  reminded  him  of  the 
pictured  initials  of  some  fantastic  poem  as  she  stood 
beside  him,  with  eyes  down-bent  and  wind-blown 
locks. 

"  She  's  deucedly  like  one  of  Vedder's  things,"  was 
the  way  his  Lordship  put  it  to  himself. 

She  looked  down  into  the  boiling  caldron  so 
long  without  speaking  that  Alingham  concluded  she 
must  be  homesick  and  unhappy. 

"  It 's  awfully  creepy,  all  this  water ;  I  've  never 
felt  anything  like  it  before." 

"  Oh,  I  say,"  said  his  Lordship,  because  he  did  n't 
know  in  the  least  what  to  say. 

"  Now  the  prairies,  where  my  home  is,  are  a  lot 
nicer.  They  don't  seem  as  if  they  were  going  to 
swallow  you  up  every  moment.  When  things  don't 
2  17 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

suit  me  at  home,  I  get  on  Chester,  —  that 's  my 
colt,  —  and  go  and  have  it  out  with  the  '  infinite.' 
That 's  what  my  governess  used  to  call  the  prairies. 
She  wrote  poems." 

"  And  did  you  hate  to  leave  it  all,  —  your  colt, 
the  infinite,  and  that  sort  of  thing?  "  inquired  Aling- 
ham,  with  the  rising  inflection  and  breathless  tension 
with  which  a  well-bred  Briton  always  asks  the  most 
casual  question. 

She  answered  with  eyes  full  of  sorrow,  "  Yes, 
I  hated  to  leave  it,  but  I  had  to  be  civilised." 

"  My  word,"  said  his  Lordship. 

"  They  are  sending  me  to  France  to  sandpaper  me 
down,  and  when  I  am  the  same  size,  shape,  and 
consistency  as  all  the  other  young  misses,  I  'm  to 
come  out." 

"  Oh,  I  say,  it  would  be  a  shame  to  sandpaper  you 
down  like  all  the  rest." 

"  But  you  see  my  father  wants  me  to  go  into 
society,  and  society  is  protective,  —  it  won't  admit 
the  raw  material." 

"  But  don't  you  think  you  'd  find  it  a  bore  to  go 
on  riding  your  colt  out  into  the  wilderness  all  your 
life.  Young  ladies  have  to  be  presented,  and  you  'd 
enjoy  that  greatly,  would  n't  you  ?  It 's  much  better 
than  nursery  teas,  and  coming  in  to  dessert  and  that 
sort  of  thing." 

"  I  guess  you  don't  know  much  about  ranch  life, 
when  you  talk  about  nursery  teas  and  coming  in  to 
dessert.  Now,  if  you  had  said  lynchings,  it  would 
have  been  much  more  to  the  point.  But  I  doubt 
if  being  presented  would  be  half  as  exciting  as  a 

18 


REFLECTIONS    OF    A    PRODIGAL 

good  '  necktie  party  '  —  that  is  the  proper  social  name 
for  them;  only  newspapers  and  Englishmen  call 
them  lynchings  —  it 's  such  a  crude  term,  don't  you 
think?" 

"  I  say,  you  never  saw  anything  so  dreadful  as 
that,  did  you  ?  " 

"  Dozens  of  times,"  —  and  the  fantastic  little  face 
was  absolutely  grave.  "  Why,  we  take  baskets  and 
make  regular  picnics  of  them.  You  've  no  idea  how 
exciting  they  are,  particularly  when  the  doomed  man 
has  supper  with  you." 

"  I  say  now,  you  're  chaffing." 

"  Chaffing  ?  —  But  you  Englishmen  have  such  a 
sense  of  humour.  Why,  we  're  nothing  if  not  hos- 
pitable in  the  West,  and  because  you  're  going  to 
hang  a  man  is  no  reason  why  you  should  n't  ask 
him  to  tea.  Suppose  he  should  alter  the  brand  on 
one  of  your  cows,  —  you  're  bound  to  hang  him  on 
principle.  What 's  more  natural  than  that  you 
should  invite  him  to  supper,  just  to  show  there  's 
nothing  personal  in  the  matter?" 

"Don't  the  authorities  interfere?" 

"  Oh  dear,  no,  it  is  n't  etiquette  to  go  to  a  necktie- 
party  unmasked  and  it 's  impossible  to  tell  who 's 
authorities  and  who  is  n't." 

"  My  word,  I  never  knew  it  was  as  bad  as  that." 

"  You  did  n't  go  West  at  all,  did  you?  " 

"  No." 

"  I  thought  not.  Did  n't  you  go  beyond  New 
York?" 

"  No,"  answered  his  Lordship,  with  a  brevity  that 
was  akin  to  curtness. 

19 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

"  How  funny !  I  thought  Englishmen  always  came 
over  here  to  hunt  things." 

Silence  on  the  part  of  his  Lordship. 

"  You  did  n't  get  a  chance  to  do  any  hunting 
about  New  York,  did  you?  I  hear  it  isn't  good." 

"  I  see  you  've  been  reading  the  New  York  papers." 

"  No,  I  never  see  them.  Why  do  you  say  that?  " 
Then,  after  a  pause,  and  a  rippling  crescendo  of 
laughter,  "  You  did  n't  try  to  hunt  bears  in  Wall 
Street  with  a  gun,  did  you,  and  get  into  the  papers  ?  " 

"  No,  I  did  not  try  to  hunt  bears  in  Wall  Street, 
Miss  Dean.  There  are  other  ways  open  to  a  man 
of  making  an  ass  of  himself." 

"  Have  we  been  offering  extra  facilities  in  that 
line  to  our  English  cousin?" 

His  laugh  was  an  unpleasant  travesty  on  merri- 
ment. She  looked  up  at  him,  half  frightened,  half 
sorry,  at  her  discovery  that  what  she  had  dealt  in 
play  hit  hard  and  hurt.  The  droop  of  his  shoulders 
as  he  stood  beside  her,  silent  and  embarrassed,  looking 
out  on  the  black  sweep  of  water,  was  pathetically 
significant  of  defeat;  and  being  wholly  feminine, 
she  wished  with  all  her  heart  that  he  would  hit 
back,  instead  of  standing  there,  helpless  and  colossal. 
She  was  sorry,  and  wanted  to  make  instant  repa- 
ration, after  her  own  impulsive  fashion.  But  what 
could  she  say  to  this  man  whom  she  had  never 
seen  before  to-day?  Involuntarily,  she  reviewed  her 
methods  of  making  peace.  When  she  had  offended 
her  father,  she  went  up  behind  him,  put  her  arms 
about  his  neck,  and  said :  "  Guess  who 's  been  a 
bad  girl?" 

20 


REFLECTIONS    OF    A    PRODIGAL 

How  absurd!  What  had  the  way  she  made  up 
with  her  father  to  do  with  this?  The  thought  of  it 
made  a  warm  flush  creep  into  her  face  and  burn 
there.  When  she  made  up  with  Chester  she  patted 
his  nose  and  gave  him  a  lump  of  sugar,  —  a  mani- 
festly impossible  course  in  the  present  instance. 

His  Lordship's  hand  rested  on  the  deck-rail.  She 
was  uncomfortably  conscious  of  an  impulse  to  cover 
it  with  her  own  and  say :  "I  am  sorry  that  in  trying 
to  be  smart  I  have  said  something  that  hurt  you." 
But  newly  awakened  maiden  instinct  restrained  her. 
For  the  first  time  she  realised  that  there  were  other 
and  subtler  relations  than  those  of  good-fellowship 
and  camaraderie.  Was  it  because  he  was  a  stranger, 
or  was  it  because  he  was  so  uncomfortably  good  to 
look  at,  or  was  it  a  combination  of  both?  The 
inquiry  put  a  new  and  interesting  aspect  on  the 
question  of  her  absolution.  Her  sudden  interest  in 
this  new  and  attractive  personality  alarmed  her. 
She  looked  at  the  strong  white  hand  lying  on  the 
deck-rail,  and  was  at  a  loss  to  explain  her  curiosity 
regarding  it,  —  yet  she  found  herself  connecting  it 
vaguely  with  the  solution  of  the  unexplained. 

Her  mind  swung  back  to  her  babyhood,  and  she 
remembered  how  she  wanted  to  touch  everything 
new  that  she  saw,  and  how  her  nurse  used  to  say 
"  Must  n't  touch  "  so  often  that  she  believed  it  was 
all  one  big  word,  and  that  it  was  the  name  of  all 
the  pretty  things  she  wanted  to  play  with  and  could 
not.  She  could  remember  a  whole  shelf  full  of 
"  Must  n't  touches "  and  some  more  that  used  to 
be  on  a  little  table.  And  as  she  thought  of  this 

21 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

big  man  beside  her  being  a  "  must  n't  touch,"  the 
incongruity  of  the  situation  flashed  upon  her  and 
threatened  to  convulse  her  with  laughter.  It  was 
so  ridiculous.  He  was  so  big  to  be  a  "  must  n't 
touch."  She  was  conscious  of  her  inability  to  control 
her  merriment  much  longer.  She  struggled,  but  it 
would  not  be  suppressed.  She  bit  her  lips,  but  they 
perversely  curved  and  puckered,  and  she  burst  into 
ripples  of  laughter  that  would  not  be  held  back. 

"  Perhaps  you  will  share  it  with  me,"  he  said, 
without  the  least  possible  trace  of  ill-humour. 

"  It  was  n't  anything,  indeed  it  was  n't.  I  just 
happened  to  remember  that  when  I  was  very  little 
I  used  to  think  '  must  n't  touch  '  was  all  one  long 
word  and  that  it  was  the  name  of  everything  beauti- 
ful in  the  world." 

"  It  is,  Miss  Dean,  but  is  n't  it  a  bit  early  for 
you  to  have  found  it  out?" 

All  her  youth  vibrated  in  the  laughter  with  which 
she  answered  him. 

"  I  've  just  discovered  it,"  she  said,  "  and  is  n't  it 
a  pity  ?  " 

She  looked  at  him  with  the  undisguised  admira- 
tion of  a  child.  And  he,  who  had  come  on  deck  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  assuring  himself  that  he  was  a 
bankrupt  who  had  no  further  interest  in  anything, 
gripped  the  deck-rail  hard  to  keep  from  moving  one 
inch  nearer.  For  Alingham  knew  women  as  some 
men  know  their  Bibles  and  others  know  mathematics, 
and  the  artless  admiration  of  this  girl  was  too  ephem- 
erally  beautiful  to  be  met  with  the  crude  tactics  of 
the  ordinary  flirtation. 

22 


REFLECTIONS    OF    A    PRODIGAL 

"  If  I  were  you,"  and  there  was  just  a  faint  note 
of  motherly  warning  in  her  voice,  "  I  would  n't 
believe  everything  people  told  me  about  America." 

"  Thanks.  I  have  been  misinformed  about  a  few 
things." 

"  You  remember  what  —  er  —  I  told  you  about 
making  up  parties  to  go  to  lynchings?" 

"  It  made  a  singularly  deep  impression  on  me." 

"  Please  don't  believe  a  word  of  it.  I  was  just 
fooling  you.  Because  —  Englishmen  will  believe 
anything  savage  about  America  —  and  I  've  always 
felt  that  I  was  serving  my  country  by  supplying 
them  with  plenty  of  exercise  for  their  imaginations. 
But  I  am  sorry  I  fibbed  to  you." 

He  knew  the  confession  cost  her  something  by 
the  complicated  system  of  knots  she  was  tying  in 
her  handkerchief.  He,  too,  had  once  been  young 
enough  to  know  the  agonies  implied  by  writhing 
pocket-handkerchiefs.  And  while  he  hesitated  be- 
tween a  choice  of  equally  gracious  acquittals,  he 
was  conscious  of  the  meekest  of  voices  appealing 
from  the  darkness : 

"  You  're  not  mad,  are  you?  " 

"  Mad  ?  I  ?  Good  gracious,  I  hope  not.  Do 
you  notice  anything  strange?  "  He  laughed  heartily. 
"  I  beg  your  pardon.  I  did  not  at  first  understand 
that  you  meant  angry.  No,  indeed,  I  'm  not  mad." 

"What's  the  difference,  I'd  like  to  know?"  she 
demanded  with  considerable  superiority. 

"  With  us,  in  England,  mad  means  insane,  crazy, 
daft,  —  in  fact,  you  can't  blame  me  for  getting  into 
a  bit  of  a  funk  at  the  suggestion." 

23 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

"  How  funny  you  English  people  talk ! "  she 
remarked,  with  the  satisfaction  of  one  whose  ideals 
are  still  contentedly  domestic. 

"  It  must  seem  a  bit  queer  to  you,"  he  said,  with 
fine  courtesy  in  which  there  was  no  trace  of  sarcasm. 

"  I  really  must  go  in.  Mrs.  Gordon  will  be  awfully 
mad  —  angry,  I  mean  —  with  me  for  staying  on 
deck  so  late.  But  if  I  have  fibbed  to  you,  you  are 
revenged,  for  I  'm  bound  to  catch  it  for  staying  out 
here  alone." 

She  seemed  undecided  about  her  method  of  taking 
leave.  She  half  extended  her  hand  and  withdrew  it. 
While  he  waited  to  follow  her  lead,  she  turned  from 
him,  and  ran  down  the  deck  at  full  speed,  only 
stopping  to  call  "  Good-night "  from  the  darkness. 

Down  the  lurching  staircase,  at  the  peril  of  her 
equilibrium,  she  flew.  It  was  as  if  some  dread 
danger  pursued.  At  her  stateroom  door  she  paused 
and  looked  back  over  her  shoulder.  From  what 
had  she  been  running? 


24 


CHAPTER   IV 

"EXTR'  ORDINARILY  SMALL   PLACE  —  THE 
WORLD ! " 

MRS.  GORDON,  Lord  Alingham,  and  the 
Honourable  Mr.  Howard,  feeling  them- 
selves the  only  people  of  moment  on  board 
the  "  Calabria,"  lost  no  time  in  constructing  a  tem- 
porary aristocracy,  in  which  they  found  refuge. 
Miss  Dean,  however,  by  no  means  confined  her 
interests  to  this  triple  alliance,  but  distressed  Mrs. 
Gordon  and  amused  the  two  Englishmen  by  the  deep 
and  insatiate  craving  she  developed  for  the  society 
of  the  trippers,  whose  history  she  knew  even  to  the 
personal  sacrifices  they  had  made  to  broaden  their 
lives  by  travel.  Mrs.  Gordon  did  her  best  to  console 
herself  for  her  cousin's  promiscuous  intimacies  on 
the  ground  that  they  were  bound  to  be  ephemeral : 
she  cherished  no  illusions  regarding  the  stability  of 
ships'  friendships,  and  thanked  Heaven  that  they 
invariably  outgrew  their  strength,  and  died  young 
enough  to  enable  the  survivors  to  cut  each  other 
comfortably  at  their  next  meeting. 

The  day  following  her  chaff  and  confidences  by  the 
deck-rail,  Alice  had  shunned  Alingham  for  reasons 
that  even  to  her  own  tribunal  seemed  insufficient 
justification  of  her  conduct.  She  had  remained  in 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

her  stuffy  stateroom  all  day,  reading  words  from  a 
book  she  had  selected  from  the  ship's  library  for 
apparently  no  other  reason  than  that  it  looked  dull 
and  was  liberally  endowed  with  impenetrable  foot- 
notes, —  a  book  of  books  for  rigid  mental  discipline. 
She  would  raise  her  eyes  from  its  meaningless  page 
to  protest  vehemently  to  a  swaying  skirt  that  hung 
from  a  peg  opposite :  "  I  hate  him !  " 

But  hate,  in  the  feminine  vocabulary,  is  a  word 
of  many  synonyms,  and  the  farther  one  goes  from 
the  primary  definition,  the  nearer  the  truth  he  is 
likely  to  be.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  was  more 
afraid  of  the  incense  of  her  own  imagination  than  of 
the  man  for  whom  it  was  burnt.  For  the  young 
vestal  had  found  a  strange  and  disconcerting  god 
set  up  in  her  temple,  and  finding  herself  more  dis- 
posed to  resent  his  intrusion  than  to  mend  fires  for 
his  greater  honour  and  glory,  she  had  confided  her 
"  hatred  "  to  the  swaying  skirt. 

The  next  day,  her  craving  for  air  and  exercise 
made  a  chance  encounter  with  her  unintentional  tor- 
mentor less  to  be  dreaded  than  the  confined  quarters 
of  the  stateroom.  She  ventured  out,  and  met  him 
on  the  staircase  coming  up  from  a  slothfully  late 
breakfast.  His  perfect  composure  adjusted  the 
situation  for  her,  better  than  months  of  reasoning 
could  have  done. 

It  was  impossible  to  crown  with  a  halo  a  man 
who  wore  a  yachting  cap  so  well,  —  who,  in  fact, 
represented  the  symbolic  in  yachting  caps  throughout 
the  world  of  leisure.  His  casual  inquiries  as  to  her 
health  during  yesterday's  absence  evoked  such  tragic 

26 


"SMALL    PLACE,  — THE    WORLD!" 

recollections  of  her  illness  that  he  wondered  how  she 
could  seem  to  glory  in  the  degradation  of  being  a 
bad  sailor. 

It  was  clear,  crisp,  and  sunshiny.  The  sea  was 
the  green  of  a  turquoise  that  has  changed  colour,  and 
the  sunlight  wrought  miracles  of  enamel  on  its 
placid  surface. 

Sunlight  dispelled  the  fantastic  quality  of  her 
beauty:  at  10  P.M.  she  had  been  a  picture  in  a 
poem;  at  10  A.M.  she  was  a  modern  girl  with 
freckles.  He  again  decided  on  her  extreme  youth. 
An  older  woman  with  claims  to  so  unique  a  type 
of  beauty  would  have  made  concessions  to  the  day- 
light, in  a  hat  and  spotted  veil,  while  waiting  to 
loosen  her  hair  for  the  evening  role.  He  thought 
Alice's  frankness  in  facing  the  sun,  freckled  and 
unashamed,  as  charming  as  it  was  unflattering. 

The  ingenue  type  was  an  unknown  quantity  to 
Lord  Alingham  in  real  life.  He  had  never  met  it 
off  the  stage,  where  he  remembered  he  had  watched 
with  unfailing  boredom  the  invariable  transformation 
of  the  white  muslin  and  blue  ribbons  of  the  first  act 
into  the  silken  rustle  of  experience  in  the  last.  The 
reality  he  found  intensely  interesting.  The  fact  that 
life,  from  his  point  of  view,  was  practically  over, 
and  that  he  had  missed  one  of  its  sweetest  experi- 
ences, made  him  look  momentarily  serious. 

"  Lord  Alingham,"  she  said,  noticing  the  change 
in  his  expression,  "  I  believe  you  're  going  to  be 
seasick." 

And  before  he  had  a  chance  to  realise  what  was 
happening,  ten  thousand  arrows  shot  through  his 
brain.  27 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

"  I  thought  it  would  bring  you  round,"  she  said 
triumphantly.  "  It 's  the  very  strongest  smelling- 
salts  made." 

"  Thanks,  I  'm  better  now,"  said  Alingham;  "  that 
vitriol,  or  whatever  it  was  you  had  in  your  vinai- 
grette, has  killed  the  mal  de  mer,  though  I  have 
survived." 

"  It 's  mean  of  you  to  call  it  names  when  it  cured 
you,"  she  said,  adjusting  her  chatelaine,  while  Aling- 
ham continued  to  mop  his  tears,  cough,  and  splutter. 

The  last  of  the  Plantagenets  made  his  way  toward 
them,  with  the  senile  hop  that  constituted  his  manner 
of  walking.  His  ancient  and  aristocratic  legs  were 
always  a  bit  uncertain  in  the  morning,  but  after  a 
certain  amount  of  brandy  and  soda  had  been  con- 
sumed, would  show  symptoms  of  getting  into  running 
order.  That  morning,  having  mistaken  the  first  flush 
of  second  childhood  for  the  rejuvenating  effect  of 
the  sea  air,  the  Honourable  Mr.  Howard  selected  a 
black  and  white  mourning  tie  that  bordered  on  the 
hilarious,  and  was  conscious  of  its  stimulating  influ- 
ence. Mrs.  Gordon  joined  them  on  deck,  and  after 
the  usual  conventional  inquiries  had  elicited  corre- 
spondingly reassuring  answers,  they  settled  down  to 
the  day's  business  of  killing  time. 

Miss  Dean  with  absolute  seriousness  began  to  tell 
them  of  the  disappointment  of  a  lady  tourist  whose 
brand-new  trunk  was  too  slippery  to  retain  its 
steamer  label,  and  who  was  a  prey  to  anxiety  lest 
the  foreign  officials  might  not  give  her  a  duplicate 
set  of  clean  labels  to  paste  on  when  she  returned 
home;  in  which  event  she  feared  that  neighbourly 

28 


"SMALL    PLACE,  — THE    WORLD!" 

opinion  might  discredit  the  extent  of  her  foreign 
travel. 

"  Does  she  call  Europe  '  the  other  side  '  ?  "  inquired 
Mrs.  Gordon. 

"  Why,  yes." 

"  Then  there  is  no  hope  for  her.  When  they 
begin  to  speak  of  it  as  Moody  and  Sankey  do  of 
Heaven,  they  are  lost.  And  Lord  Alingham  will 
put  her  down  as  the  typical  American  girl  in  his 
forthcoming  book,  '  Forty-eight  Hours  in  the  United 
States.'  You  Englishmen  are  driving  native  Ameri- 
can humourists  to  despair,  with  your  '  Five-Minutes- 
in- America '  series,  and  we  have  no  *  Times '  at 
home,  to  write  protests  to." 

"You  are  to  be  the  heroine  of  —  what  is  it?  — 
'  Forty-eight  Hours  in  the  United  States ' ;  the  lady 
with  the  slippery  trunk  shall  not  supplant  you." 

"  The  box  was  made  slippery,  no  doubt,  as  a  con- 
cession to  your  custom-house  formalities,  Mrs. 
Gordon.  It  is  easier,  you  know,  for  a  camel  to  pass 
through  the  eye  of  a  needle  than  for  a  box  to  go 
through  your  American  custom-house,"  explained 
Uncle  Reginald,  who  was  old  school  and  always 
pointed  out  the  '  ladies'  entrance '  to  a  joke,  no 
matter  how  harmless. 

"  For  my  part,"  said  Mrs.  Gordon,  "  I  love  the 
lady  with  the  trunk.  If  it  were  not  for  her,  we 
might  all  be  discussing  books  or  music  or  the  '  higher 
foolishness.' ' 

"  Is  n't  it  singular,"  said  Lord  Alingham,  "  that 
music  is  such  a  success  to  talk  to,  and  such  a  bore 
to  talk  about?  Why  don't  debating  societies  hire 

29 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

orchestras  ?  —  and  halting  ministers  might  have  the 
choir  sing  during  the  sermon." 

"  Really  now,"  observed  the  last  of  the  Plantage- 
nets,  "  I  Ve  heard  that  it  is  quite  common  for  your 
millionaires  to  have  the  De  Reszkes  in  to  sing  during 
afternoon  tea,  just  to  promote  family  conversation." 

"  Yes,  Jean  and  Edouard  are  a  great  improvement 
on  the  English  muffin  as  a  conversational  whetstone. 
No  American  really  understands  English  repose  until 
he  has  met  the  English  muffin.  I  hear  there  is  a  bill 
before  Congress  now  to  annex  it." 

"  My  dear  lady,"  said  the  Honourable  Reginald, 
with  British  blandness,  "  you  could  not  possibly  annex 
our  muffin.  I  fear  some  one  has  been  mischievously 
chaffing  you  about  politics." 

"  Our  friends  have  resumed  their  studies  in  antici- 
patory geography,"  said  Lord  Alingham,  as  the 
trippers  emerged  from  their  cocoon-like  bundles  of 
rugs,  and  spreading  out  maps,  began  to  trace  with 
their  noses  the  routes  they  were  going  to  take,  ex- 
claiming with  delight  when  their  keenness  of  scent 
had  taken  them  to  cities  they  were  booked  to  visit. 

Alice  Dean,  who  was  sensitively  patriotic,  resented 
their  jocular  superiority. 

"  You  are  snobs,  all  of  you,  and  ought  to  be 
ashamed.  Europe  is  as  far  from  the  United  States 
as  the  United  States  is  from  Europe,  and  I  'd  like 
to  know  whether  Lord  Alingham  did  not  believe  me 
when  I  told  him  that  lynchings  were  our  principal 
social  functions,  and  half  the  Englishmen  who  come 
here  expect  to  hunt  buffalo  in  the  suburbs  of  New 
York." 

30 


"SMALL    PLACE,  — THE   WORLD!' 

"  Hear !    Hear !  "  they  said. 

"  Now  I  am  going  to  ask  you  people  who  are 
so  superior  to  a  little  provincialism  a  few  questions. 
What  does  P-o-t-o-m-a-c  spell,  Lord  Alingham?" 

"  Pot-a-mac,"   promptly   responded   his  Lordship. 

"What  does  P-o-t-o-m-a-c  spell,  Mr.  Howard?" 

"  I  'm  blest  if  I  know,  if  it  is  not  Pot-a-mac,"  said 
the  last  of  the  Plantagenets. 

"  Neither  of  you  presume  to  criticise  a  party  of 
American  tourists  again.  It 's  Po-to'mac,  just  plain 
Po-to'mac." 

"  Your  turn  now,  Betty.  If  you  were  presented 
to  the  Prince  of  Wales,  how  would  you  address 
him?" 

"  Good  gracious,  I  was  never  good  at  guessing 
conundrums.  Besides,  why  do  you  take  this  moment, 
when  two  Englishmen  are  present,  to  force  the 
humiliating  confession  from  me  that  I  have  never 
met  him?" 

"No  hedging,  what  would  you  say?" 

"  Your  Royal  Highness,  I  suppose." 

"  Then  you  would  be  wrong.  You  ought  to  say 
'  Sir,'  just  plain  '  Sir,'  and  the  Queen  likes  to  be 
called  '  Ma'am  '  by  members  of  her  own  household. 
I  know,  because  the  Englishman  who  told  me  used  to 
be  a  page.  He  was  awfully  nice;  he  taught  me  lots 
about  England  and  I  taught  him  how  to  make  walnut- 
taffy,  but  he  would  always  call  it  '  toffy,'  try  as  I 
would  to  make  him  say  it  right." 

"  And  where  may  you  have  had  lessons  in  court 
etiquette?"  inquired  Mrs.  Gordon,  highly  amused. 

"  Don't  you  remember  the  Spring  you  spent  with 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

Mr.  Gordon,  in  Montana?  He  went  to  attend  the 
Spring  '  round-up/  and  you  went  with  him,  and 
Uncle  Dick,  the  governess,  and  I  were  all  alone  on 
the  ranch,  till  Mr.  Talbot  Guest  came  to  buy  the 
'  X.  Y.  L.'  brand  from  your  father  for  an  English 
syndicate.  He  did  not  close  the  deal  for  a  long 
time,  and  it  was  while  they  were  talking  and  bar- 
gaining and  riding  all  over  the  country  that  Mr. 
Guest  told  me  so  much  about  England,  and  I  taught 
him  how  to  make  walnut-taffy  in  the  evenings." 

"  Really,  Mrs.  Gordon,"  broke  in  Lord  Alingham, 
"  did  Talbot  Guest  buy  the  '  X.  Y.  L.'  brand  from 
your  father?  He  was  my  cousin,  and  I  had  several 
letters  from  him  while  he  was  in  the  States.  Ah,  — 
yes,  Dean  was  the  name,  I  remember.  Dean  was 
your  maiden  name?" 

"  Yes,"  answered  Mrs.  Gordon,  with  pale  lips ; 
but  the  two  Englishmen  were  too  amazed  at  what 
they  had  just  learned  to  notice. 

The  finely  graven  nostrils  of  the  last  of  the 
Plantagenets  grew  tense  and  white.  His  self- 
possessed  hands  fumbled  foolishly  with  the  travelling- 
rug,  that  was  black,  white,  and  spectacular,  like 
everything  connected  with  his  bereavement.  The 
whimsical  handwriting  of  his  nephew,  that  had  never 
quite  outgrown  its  university  struggles  with  Greek, 
flashed  before  him  again :  "  This  damned  old  screw 
of  a  cattle-man  is  holding  out  for  two  hundred 
pounds  when  he  could  write  his  cheque  for  five 
million  sterling  and  hardly  miss  it." 

When  he  spoke,  his  voice  took  the  required  sym- 
pathetic note  with  rare  skill.  Not  even  the  woman 

32 


"SMALL    PLACE,  — THE    WORLD!" 

beside  him,  who  had  just  discovered  that  he  knew  all 
about  her  husband's  suicide,  could  have  demanded 
more  in  the  way  of  inflection.  It  was  fully  a  minute 
before  he  could  pull  himself  together  and  drawl : 

"  Extr'ordinary  small  place,  world  is.  Coinci- 
dence, we  met.  Guest  was  my  nephew.  He  was 
killed  tiger-shooting  in  Africa,  two  years  after  he 
was  in  the  States,  —  the  property  went  to  cousin 
in  Ireland." 

"  Really,"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Gordon,  "  how  extra- 
ordinarily all  this  is  like  a  novel  with  a  plot !  " 

Mr.  Howard  excused  himself,  —  he  needed  brandy- 
and-soda,  a  good  deal  of  it,  and  very  quickly.  "  And 
yet,"  he  reflected,  "  people  can  be  agnostics,  in  the 
face  of  a  special  Providence  like  this.  —  A  bankrupt, 
Heaven  only  knows  how  many  millions  sterling,  and 
a  week  of  propinquity ! " 


33 


CHAPTER  V 

"  THE  MATRIMONIAL  LIMITED  TO  PROSPERITY " 

"  "M      AfY  dear  boy,"    said   Uncle   Reginald,   in 
|\/|     his   nephew's    stateroom   half   an   hour 
-L  T  A   later,   "it's  not  often  that  Providence 
is  so  dramatic.     Here  you  were,  on  your  way  to 
the  Devil  or  the  suburbs,  when  a  charming  widow 
with  ever   so  many  millions   sterling  turns   up  on 
the  same  boat  with  you.  —  I  say,  a  man  's  got  to 
believe  in  something  after  a  supernatural  interposi- 
tion like  this." 

His  Lordship,  who  was  sprawling  on  a  sofa  a 
foot  too  short  for  him,  answered,  laughing: 

"  It 's  confoundedly  theatrical,  to  have  Algy 
Gordon's  widow  turn  up  like  this  in  the  last  act. 
But  I  could  never  live  up  to  the  situation.  I  should 
feel  obliged  to  make  love  with  grimaces  and  gestures, 
like  Beerbohm  Tree." 

"  There  was  a  nasty  bit  of  business  about  Gordon's 
suicide.  Was  it  money  or  a  woman?  " 

"  Both,  I  fancy.  Old  E>ean  gave  him  nominal 
control  of  a  great  amount  of  money,  and  sent  him 
back  to  England  to  raise  capital  for  some  mines  he 
was  opening  up.  The  old  duffer  did  n't  know 
Gordon's  people  made  him  an  allowance  for  living 
out  of  England,  or,  in  fact,  what  a  scoundrel  he 
was.  He  raised  the  Devil  and  squandered  the  capital 

34 


"THE    LIMITED   TO   PROSPERITY5 

on  —  what  was  the  name  of  that  girl  with  the  big 
eyes  who  danced  her  clothes  inside  out  at  the  halls  ?  " 

"  So  many  ladies  at  the  halls  answer  to  that 
description  —  " 

"  At  all  events,  Gordon  was  an  ass  to  go  back  to 
the  States  after  more  money.  The  old  man  was  very 
rude,  said  his  daughter  should  have  a  divorce,  and 
all  sorts  of  nasty  things.  Gordon,  the  poor  devil, 
had  the  decency  to  shoot  himself,  —  it  was  the  only 
civil  way  out  of  it  at  the  time,  though  old  Dean 
died  shortly  after." 

Howard  looked  at  his  nephew  anxiously  for  a 
moment  or  two,  and  then  said,  with  a  seriousness 
he  seldom  bestowed  on  anything  but  his  family 
tree: 

"  A  vulgar  business,  suicide.  No  one  but  a  cad 
would  throw  up  his  cards  and  quit  the  game  because 
he  had  drawn  a  bad  hand." 

"  When  a  man  's  played  his  cards  and  lost  like 
a  gentleman,  I  suppose  he  may  leave  quietly  by  the 
back  door,  instead  of  exhibiting  himself  to  the  crowd 
as  a  failure." 

"  You  don't  defend  Gordon  as  a  gentleman,  do 
you?" 

"  I  was  n't  defending  Gordon,  but  the  only  sensible 
thing  he  ever  did." 

The  last  of  the  Plantagenets  had  no  wish  to  pro- 
long a  discussion  on  the  ethics  of  suicide.  He  was 
in  the  position  of  a  dowager  who  in  the  last  quarter 
of  the  season  still  has  an  unengaged  daughter  on 
her  hands.  It  was  the  time  for  action,  not  ethics. 

"  This  is  Monday,"  he  began,  sugar-coating  his 
35 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

strategy  with  elaborate  jocularity.  "  We  sha'n't  land 
before  Saturday ;  blessing  the  boat 's  a  tub.  Any- 
thing can  be  arranged  in  five  days  with  propinquity : 
why,  a  man  might  make  his  own  wife  fall  in  love 
with  him  aboard  an  ocean  steamer,  —  if  there  was  n't 
another  man  aboard." 

"  I  'm  glad,  Reggie,  you  've  found  something  to 
divert  you.  She  's  as  safe  from  me  as  if  she  were 
guarded  by  a  staff  of  New  York  reporters.  I  'm 
done  with  the  '  matrimonial  limited  to  prosperity,'  as 
I  heard  an  American  say." 

"  Don't  be  an  ass,  my  dear  boy,"  said  the  surviving 
Plantagenet.  "  You  might  as  well  say  that  you 
would  never  eat  another  meal  because  one  disagreed 
with  you,  or  fall  in  love  with  a  woman  because 
one  refused  you,  or  —  " 

:'  Yes,  I  know  the  situation  is  bad  enough  without 
garnishing  it  up  with  Low  Church  rhetoric;  but, 
personally,  I  prefer  the  Devil  or  the  suburbs. 
Besides,  clergymen  and  socialists  are  the  only  people 
who  really  marry  for  money.  The  rest  of  us  only 
play  at  it  till  the  right  woman  comes  along,  —  and 
the  right  woman  is  always  penniless.  Why  is  the 
right  woman  always  penniless,  Reggie?  —  just  as 
one's  affinity  is  always  married." 

The  Honourable  Reginald  greeted  these  sentiments 
with  a  smile  that  disclosed  a  magnificent  service  of 
gold  plate. 

'  Then  what  the  Devil  are  you  going  to  do  ?  You 
can't  afford  to  stay  single  with  your  debts." 

"  My  dear  boy,  I  've  lived  with  debt  so  long 
that  it  would  be  like  losing  an  old  friend  to  part 

36 


"THE    LIMITED   TO   PROSPERITY" 

with  it,  —  ready  money  would  make  me  miserable. 
Besides,  I  'm  going  in  for  something  new  in  the  way 
of  a  career.  Other  bankrupts  marry  Americans, 
earn  their  dinners  as  jesters,  or  prey  upon  their 
landladies.  None  of  these  things  attracts  me.  I  shall 
go  down  to  posterity  a  warning  of  the  follies  of 
plunging.  No  British  youth  will  be  allowed  to  attain 
his  majority  without  passing  an  examination  on  my 
decline  and  fall.  I  even  aspire  to  a  tract :  '  The 
Moth  of  the  Footlights,  or  The  Fall  of  the  Foolish 
Lord.'  A  modern  social  Lucifer,  I  shall  fall  from 
Park  Lane  to  Bloomsbury,  from  Bloomsbury  to 
Hackney,  —  it  will  be  sublime." 

"  Have  a  brandy-and-soda,  do,"  urged  Uncle 
Reginald,  haunted  by  a  vision  of  a  borrowing 
relative. 

"  I  don't  want  a  B.  and  S.,  old  man,  any  more 
than  I  want  a  rich  wife.  God  knows,  I  may  yet 
have  to  take  both."  The  gloom  with  which  he  made 
this  statement  lightened  perceptibly  as  he  contem- 
plated his  well-fitting  boot;  he  could  nearly  always 
find  consolation  for  the  afflictions  of  a  common  day 
in  some  one  of  his  innumerable  perfections. 

"  There  is  such  an  appalling  finality  about  the 
situation,"  he  went  on,  still  studying  the  spring  of 
his  instep.  "  A  bankrupt  and  several  millions  sterling 
both  at  large  on  the  high  seas.  Some  one  ought  to 
tell  the  captain,  so  he  could  put  me  in  irons  to  keep 
me  from  proposing." 

Howard  regarded  his  nephew's  badinage  as  little 
short  of  insanity.  The  situation  had  been  appalling; 
the  advent  of  Mrs.  Gordon  at  least  presented  the 

37 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

possibility  of  a  dignified  exit.     And  here  was  this 
silly  young  ass  bandying  jokes  about  it. 

"  I  can't  understand  why  you  don't  get  up  some 
enthusiasm  about  her.  She  's  the  best  looking  woman 
we  've  seen  since  we  left  England." 

"  She  's  —  a  —  too  stimulating.  She  's  like  those 
abominable  cocktails  that  Americans  are  always 
tossing  off;  —  fancy  always  gulping  cocktails." 

Reginald  looked  as  if  he  had  contemplated  more 
formidable  prospects. 

"  She  's  rich,  young,  clever,  and  handsome.  What 
more  can  you  possibly  want  ?  " 

"  That 's  it,  she 's  clever.  She 's  too  deuced 
clever  for  me.  She  belongs  to  that  third  sex  that 's 
in  at  the  death  of  the  century,  —  women  with  heads 
instead  of  hearts,  theories  instead  of  passions, 
careers  instead  of  children.  They  are  like  paper 
flowers ;  neither  age  nor  sorrow  can  wither  them,  — 
they  can  only  become  stale,  dusty,  and  shop-worn." 

The  surviving  Plantagenet  strove  to  calm  his 
upset  nerves.  It  was  some  moments  before  he  felt 
equal  to  saying: 

"  One  is  at  home  so  seldom  nowadays,  my  dear 
boy,  that  the  domestic  paper-rose  ought  not  to  jar ;  — 
especially  when  —  a  —  other  kinds  of  roses  —  may 
be  so  successfully  cultivated  elsewhere." 

Lord  Alingham  gathered  up  his  long  legs  from 
the  extreme  corner  of  the  stateroom  whither  they 
had  strayed  from  the  diminutive  sofa,  stood  up, 
yawned,  and  said :  "  Don't  let 's  talk  about  it  any 
more,  Reggie,  —  who  knows  but  the  boat  may  go 
down  and  settle  the  whole  question?" 

38 


"THE    LIMITED   TO   PROSPERITY' 

Uncle  Reginald,  who  had  no  desire  to  become 
involved  in  his  nephew's  affairs  to  such  an  extent, 
looked  apprehensive  and  lapsed  into  a  gloomy  silence. 
He  was  thinking  that  for  a  man  who  made  boredom 
his  religion  and  who  was  a  bankrupt  and  a  failure 
to  boot,  Alingham  looked  too  cheerful  —  too  vulgarly 
cheerful  —  for  the  part. 

"  I  say,  old  man,"  said  Lord  Alingham,  after 
blowing  some  abortive  rings  of  smoke,  "  have  you 
ever  noticed  her  hair  ?  It 's  the  most  wonderful 
bronze  —  there  's  sunlight  in  it  at  night,  in  the  dark. 
Why,  I  've  seen  that  head  glow  the  length  of  the 
ship." 

"What  the  Devil  are  you  talking  about?  Why, 
her  head  's  as  black  as  a  crow's." 

"Whose  head?" 

"  God  bless  my  soul,  then  it 's  the  little  two-year- 
old  that 's  already  several  lengths  ahead  in  your 
affections?  I  might  have  known  as  much  from  the 
sublime  unfitness,  the  folly  of  the  thing.  You  must 
be  mad,  Ally.  You  could  n't  keep  out  of  trouble  in 
a  strait- jacket.  A  man  with  your  debts  can't  af- 
ford affections.  Don't  you  know  that  affections  are 
the  prerogative  of  the  squalid  poor  and  the  ultra 
rich  ?  Besides,  a  boy  of  seven-and-twenty  could  n't 
possibly  fall  in  love  with  an  ingenue  —  it 's  unnat- 
ural. No  one  falls  in  love  with  an  ingenue  till  he  's 
in  his  dotage,  has  gout,  and  family  prayers.  It 's 
a  hideous  confession  on  your  part." 

"  '  None  but  the  infirm  deserve  the  ingenue,'  — 
that 's  what  you  were  going  to  say,  is  n't  it,  Reggie? 
It 's  so  easy  to  be  epigrammatic  nowadays.  All 

39 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

that  is  necessary  is  to  transpose  the  copybook: 
'  Honesty  is  the  worst  policy,'  — '  Never  do  to-day 
that  which  you  can  put  off  till  to-morrow/  —  '  Marry 
in  haste,  rejoice  at  leisure.'  —  See,  I  can  almost  keep 
up  with  Mrs.  Gordon." 

"  You  are  an  ass,  Ally,"  said  Uncle  Reginald, 
exercising  a  fine  restraint  in  the  matter  of  epigram 
and  subtlety  generally.  "  Well,  I  'm  off,  and  with 
the  help  of  Providence,  I  won't  succumb  to  the 
ingenue  type  for  twenty  years  to  come." 


40 


CHAPTER  VI 

"LONDON  MEANT  THE  DELUGE  AND  THE 
DELUGE  WAS  AT  HAND" 

THE  men  took  the  situation  with  British 
impassiveness ;  neither  again  referred  to 
the  subject  that  most  completely  absorbed 
his  thoughts.  Howard  had  lived  long  enough  to 
know  that  Folly  has  no  more  eloquent  advocate  than 
the  friendly  adviser  with  his  well-meant  homily 
against  cap  and  bells,  and  that,  apart  from  any 
attraction  Miss  Dean  might  have  had  for  his  nephew 
in  her  own  right,  Alingham  from  a  sheer  love  of 
the  perverse,  would  have  found  it  difficult  to  resist 
falling  in  love  with  a  situation  so  inopportune  as 
the  present.  When  Howard  told  Lord  Alingham 
that  the  latter  would  get  into  trouble  in  a  strait- 
jacket,  he  spoke  from  the  fulness  of  long-suffering 
experience. 

The  widowed  lady  who,  in  the  eleventh  hour  of 
his  Lordship's  adversity,  unwittingly  introduced 
suspense  to  complicate  the  situation  further  as  far 
as  the  Honourable  Reginald  Howard  was  concerned, 
was  not  inclined  to  quarrel  with  the  fates  for  writing 
her  name  on  the  same  passenger  list  with  those  of 
the  two  Englishmen.  She  found  them  interesting, 

41 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

Alingham  so  much  so  that  time  never  passed  so 
quickly  as  when  they  nibbled  together  at  one  of 
those  barmecide  feasts  of  unreason  designated  by 
Mr.  Zangwill  as  the  "  Philosophy  of  Topsyturvy- 
dom " ;  in  which  automatic  process  of  witticism 
neither  was  without  considerable  skill.  And  if  he 
found  the  game  of  balancing  saws  on  their  venerable 
heads  tedious,  he  did  it  with  so  successful  an  affecta- 
tion of  enjoyment  as  to  deceive  even  such  an  expert 
as  she. 

To  Miss  Dean,  however,  when  opportunity  af- 
forded, he  chatted  about  himself,  —  fluently,  and 
with  no  cleverness  aforethought.  These  annals  did 
not  include  the  difficulties  of  the  last  few  years, 
nor  the  financial  abyss  that  yawned  for  him  in 
London.  They  were  confined  chiefly  to  innocuous 
escapades  at  Harrow  and  Magdalen,  —  the  style  of 
manly  autobiography  that  a  knowing  matron  would 
have  welcomed  as  hopeful,  had  Lord  Alingham  been 
an  eligible. 

For  Alice  the  light  had  entered  and  the  world 
begun.  It  was  the  Garden  of  Eden  while  the  apple- 
trees  were  still  in  blossom. 

The  day's  idling  usually  ended  with  tea,  which 
Miss  Dean  always  made  for  the  others  in  a  grotesque 
little  teapot  that  had  a  fat  Chinaman  for  a  body 
and  his  twisted  pigtail  for  a  handle.  Alingham 
used  to  watch  with  half-closed  eyes  as  she  fussed 
about  the  tea,  and  wonder  how  long  it  had  been 
since  the  teapot  had  supplanted  dolls  in  her  affec- 
tions, —  where  even  now,  however,  it  did  not  stand 
supreme;  for  marmalade  and  plum-cake  she  also 

42 


"THE    DELUGE    AT    HAND" 

cherished  with  the  unbridled  passion  of  youth  and 
innocence. 

Alingham  grinned  whenever  he  thought  of  Uncle 
Reginald's  comment  on  the  absurdity  of  a  man  of 
seven-and-twenty  falling  in  love  with  an  ingenue. 
He  grinned  unwholesomely.  His  laughter  was  too 
frequent  to  be  hearty  these  days,  and  too  suggestive 
of  nerves  for  a  man  who  looked  as  if  he  might  have 
walked  out  of  a  Norse  mythology. 

A  miserly  greed  possessed  him  for  every  moment 
of  these  last  days  of  certainty,  and  set  him  seri- 
ously to  weighing  trifles  in  the  hope  that  the  chosen 
triviality  would  make  him  forget  that  London  meant 
the  deluge  and  the  deluge  was  at  hand. 

His  nerves  had  picked  up  an  abominable  trick  of 
late  that  kept  him  continually  changing  his  occupa- 
tion and  sent  him  from  one  part  of  the  ship  to  the 
other.  Whether  he  walked  the  decks,  lounged  in 
the  smoking-room,  or  swung  below  to  his  quarters 
for  sleep,  there  was  ever  a  phantom  gentleman  at 
his  elbow  seeking  to  serve  him  with  phantom  papers. 
And  at  night,  in  the  dark,  the  ship's  whirling  screw 
spelled  out  fateful  words  that  made  cold  fear  gnaw 
at  the  pit  of  his  stomach. 

Then  the  "  yellow  devil "  of  whiskey  stood  by 
him  and  scattered  the  pack  of  terrors  baying  at  his 
heels.  He  called  up  the  yellow  devil  often,  and  it 
did  not  fail  him;  he  wanted  his  swan  song  to  have 
a  laughing  chorus,  whether  it  violated  the  dramatic 
proprieties  or  not.  When  the  yellow  devil  proved 
riotous  good  company,  Alingham  would  joke  hila- 
riously with  him  about  the  deluge.  —  Would  it  be 

43 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

landlady-baiting  in  Bloomsbury,  or  a  bullet  and  a 
neat  notice  in  a  morning  paper,  beginning :  "  The 
many  friends  of  the  late  Lord  Alingham  are  deeply 
pained,  etc."? 

When  Alice  was  available  for  walks,  talks,  deck- 
games,  and  tea,  the  yellow  devil  was  neglected ;  with 
a  smile  she  could  reconstruct  his  tottering  world. 

With  Alice  it  was  the  first  opportunity  to  exchange 
coin  of  the  realm  of  confidence,  and  no  sleek-pursed 
spendthrift,  long  exiled  from  the  sights  and  sounds 
of  money-clinking  in  the  market-place,  could  have 
changed  and  spent  with  keener  delight  than  she  who 
for  the  first  time  in  her  pent-up  young  life  knew 
the  relief  of  letting  herself  gush  out  in  words.  The 
lack  of  sympathy  that  had  made  her  eighteen  years 
of  life  but  a  bleak  excursion  into  the  inevitable  had 
not  been  without  its  lesson  of  pitiless  stoicism.  It 
had  taught  her  the  ways  of  solitude  and  the  gait  and 
bearing  of  self-restraint.  She  had  learned  to  meet 
the  equinoctials  of  youth  alone  and  dry-eyed,  and  the 
experience  had  given  her  a  mellowness  beyond  her 
years.  Even  Alingham,  who  all  his  life  had  been 
anointed  with  the  approval  of  women,  and  had  nice 
taste  in  sympathy  and  the  other  votive  offerings  of 
the  sex,  could  not  understand  the  perfection  of  such 
an  early  vintage.  And  so  the  week  slipped  by  in 
the  drowsy  uniformity  of  days  spent  'twixt  sky  and 
sea. 

Liverpool  loomed  up  one  fine  morning,  out  of  a 
blue-gray  sea,  and  with  it  came  to  Alingham  reaction, 
and  a  delightful  sense  of  irresponsibility;  with  the 
death  warrant  at  hand,  his  attitude  became  that  of 

44 


"THE    DELUGE    AT    HAND" 

a  stoical  murderer,  stunned  into  indifference  to  his 
fate. 

The  sight  of  a  little  Italian  hunchback  who  crawled 
up  from  the  steerage  put  him  in  the  best  of  spirits. 

"  It 's  a  good  omen,"  he  said,  and  gave  the  boy  a 
sovereign,  carefully  patting  him  on  the  back.  The 
urchin  bit,  then  pocketed,  the  coin,  and  grinned 
sardonically.  He  knew  his  misfortune  was  reckoned 
as  bringing  luck  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  He  took 
the  big  blond  man  for  a  gambler. 

The  four  persons  who  constituted  the  "  Calabria's  " 
upper  stratum  came  up  to  London  in  the  same  com- 
partment. As  it  was  Miss  Dean's  first  English 
experience,  she  was  not  reserved  in  her  comments. 

"  Oh,  is  n't  it  cute  ?  "  she  said  of  the  surrounding 
landscape.  "  It  looks  like  the  '  bird's-eye-view  '  maps 
in  the  geography,  or  city  parks,  —  that 's  it,  city 
parks.  And  don't  those  two-and-six  and  one-and- 
nine  signs  sound  simply  ruinous?  I  keep  thinking 
they  are  dollars." 

"  They  '11  translate  them  into  dollars  for  you,  fast 
enough,  in  the  shops,"  said  Mrs.  Gordon,  smiling. 

"  That 's  getting  to  be  the  national  arithmetic," 
said  Lord  Alingham. 

Uncle  Reginald  was  unusually  quiet;  Alice  found 
her  whirl  of  questions  slow  down  whenever  she 
glanced  in  his  direction. 

In  Liverpool  Alingham  bought  all  the  illustrated 
magazines  that  the  news-stand  offered,  and  when 
Alice  grew  tired  of  watching  racing  fields,  hedges, 
and  spinning  farmhouses,  she  turned  her  attention  to 
the  pictures.  He  was  smiling  at  the  instinctive  way 

45 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

she  reached  for  her  hat-pin  and  pressed  it  into  service 
as  a  paper-cutter,  when  she  called  out  to  him,  — 

"Oh,  isn't  she  lovely?  Look,  did  you  ever  see 
anyone  so  beautiful  ?  " 

Together  they  bent  over  the  open  pages  of  a 
London  weekly,  and  a  full-lipped,  narrow-eyed 
woman  smiled  up  at  them  insolently.  The  pose  of 
the  head  —  a  deliberate  delight  in  its  own  perfec- 
tion —  would  have  been  repulsive  in  a  less  beautiful 
woman.  In  her  it  was  but  supreme  satisfaction  in 
loveliness  so  great  as  to  permit  of  impersonal  enjoy- 
ment. There  were  diamonds  on  her  breast  and  in 
her  hair  and  on  her  arms.  She  was  of  no  particular 
age,  —  she  might  have  been  anywhere  in  the  per- 
ennial youth  of  heartlessness.  A  line  beneath  gave 
her  name  and  the  information  that  it  was  her  latest 
photograph. 

"  Please  don't  spoil  your  eyes  by  looking  at  these 
things  while  the  train  is  moving,"  he  said  with  the 
tenderest  smile  and  the  faintest  little  pressure  of  the 
hand,  and  closed  the  magazine.  She  looked  up  at 
him  gratefully,  —  the  rest  of  her  small  world  was 
not  given  to  bothering  its  head  over  such  trifles  as 
her  eyes. 

He  looked  across  the  fields  where  a  white  cottage 
spun  like  a  dying  top,  and  remarked  to  himself,  men- 
tally, that  innocence  was  an  uncommonly  fine  thing. 
He  said  it  with  an  air  of  conviction,  as  he  might 
have  announced  a  preference  of  peaches  to  pine- 
apples. A  more  experienced  woman  would  have 
wondered  at  his  closing  the  book,  asked  questions, 
tried  and  convicted  him  in  the  supreme  court  of  her 

46 


"THE    DELUGE    AT    HAND" 

intuition.  Unquestionably,  innocence  was  a  beautiful 
thing. 

With  the  blind  resentment  of  the  irresponsible, 
who,  as  a  class  or  individuals,  are  never  without  the 
necessary  matches  to  kindle  their  own  private  and 
particular  hells,  Alingham  felt  that  in  the  matter 
of  practical  jokes  the  fates  had  gone  far  enough 
without  allowing  the  best  woman  that  had  come  into 
his  life  to  stumble  across  a  picture  of  the  worst, 
decked  out  in  diamonds  —  his  diamonds. 

Mrs.  Gordon  was  looking  out  of  the  window,  and 
Mr.  Howard  was  absorbed  in  illustrated  papers; 
neither  had  noticed  the  incident. 

"  What  are  you  thinking  of,  Alice  ?  "  It  was  the 
first  time  that  Alingham  had  spoken  to  her  by  her 
Christian  name,  and  the  shaky  manner  in  which  his 
voice  pumped  the  words  out  reminded  him  of  the 
first  time  he  had  attempted  a  speech. 

"  I  was  thinking  what  a  funny  train  this  is,  and 
how  it  seems  as  if  we  were  all  playing  stage-coach. 
We  are  the  passengers,  Betty,  Mr.  Howard,  and  I, 
and  you  ought  to  be  the  conductor  and  take  up  the 
tickets,  and  toot  on  a  horn  and  show  off,  —  the 
little  boy  who  plays  conductor  always  shows  off. 
And  Mr.  Howard  —  my,  how  mad  he  looks  at  me 
for  talking  to  you !  No,  he  sha'n't  be  a  passenger,  he 
shall  be  the  aunt  who  raps  the  window  and  makes 
the  children  stop  playing  and  come  into  the  house." 

Alingham  laughed.  "  Reggie,  Miss  Dean  and  I 
are  playing  a  game,  and  you  are  the  aunt  who  raps 
the  window  and  makes  us  stop." 

"  You  will  excuse  me,  I  know,  Miss  Dean,"  —  the 
47 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

golden  grin  became  almost  wolfish,  —  "  but  I  have 
given  up  rapping  the  window;  the  children  never 
hear  nor  care  to  know  when  they  have  played  too 
long." 

His  nephew  winced.  The  first  straggling  sub- 
urban villas  began  to  reel  and  stagger  past  the  car 
windows.  He  realised  that  London  was  at  hand, 
waiting  to  confer  on  him  its  degree  of  failure.  He 
was  the  modern  prodigal,  clad  in  purple  and  fine 
linen,  who  returned  first-class,  and  would  presently 
partake  of  fatted  calf  —  if  a  remnant  of  credit 
remained.  He  knew  that  the  beaked  money-lenders 
were  already  circling  around  his  lodgings  in  Half 
Moon  Street,  awaiting  his  last  financial  gasp.  And 
there,  opposite  him,  sat  Algy  Gordon's  widow,  whose 
little  pink  hand  might  have  saved  him  if  he  had 
but  asked  for  it.  And  yet,  he  was  rather  proud  of 
himself  for  having  dangled  round  her  penniless 
relative  —  it  was  his  nearest  approach  to  being  a 
hero,  and  though  he  was  not  happy,  he  felt  he 
deserved  a  great  deal  of  lime  light. 


48 


CHAPTER  VII 

IN  THE   ELEVENTH   HOUR   OF   ADVERSITY 

ALINGHAM  had  been  in  London  a  week, 
and  triumphant  failure  no  longer  appealed 
to  him  as  a  career.  His  friends  had  been 
kind,  too  obviously  kind.  He  recognised  the  rally 
of  well-bred  curiosity  —  politely  disguised  as  friendly 
interest  —  that  invariably  follows  in  the  wake  of 
calamity.  They  asked  him  to  dinner,  they  walked 
across  the  street  to  speak  to  him,  and  they  refrained 
from  discussing  the  latest  Anglo-American  engage- 
ment in  his  presence;  Alingham  knew  that  later  on, 
when  his  linen  should  become  frayed,  they  would  do 
none  of  these  things.  At  the  clubs,  "  Alingham, 
poor  devil "  was  already  past  tense.  And  the  ex- 
pression about  his  mouth  settled  into  an  unpleasant 
grin,  half  apologetic,  half  defiant,  as  he  went  about 
pretending  to  enjoy  his  social  obsequies. 

If  he  had  consulted  his  own  inclinations,  he  would 
have  left  it  all  and  joined  one  of  Jimmy  Musgrove's 
tinned-meat  expeditions.  Jimmy  Musgrove,  who 
was  a  younger  son  of  Lord  Reginald  Falmouth,  was 
always  exploring  strange  quarters  of  the  earth,  and 
leaving  Crosse  and  Blackwell's  bottles  to  mark  the 
spots  where  nothing  had  been  discovered.  Mus- 
grove was  getting  up  an  expedition  to  the  North 
4  49 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

Pole  and  urged  Alingham  to  accompany  him.  His 
Lordship  thought  very  well  of  it  at  first,  but  learning 
incidentally  that  in  all  probability  it  would  be  too 
cold  to  dress  for  dinner  after  leaving  180°  latitude, 
he  decided  to  take  the  advice  of  his  family  and  stop 
at  home. 

Cork  Street  knew  all  about  Mrs.  Gordon  before 
she  had  been  settled  twenty-four  hours  at  the  Cecil. 
It  was  she,  an  unconscious  Rizpah,  who  staved  off 
these  birds  of  prey. 

Temperamentally,  Mrs.  Gordon  had  so  great  an 
aversion  to  unadorned  facts  that  she  exercised  great 
ingenuity  in  concealing  them  with  elegant  but  irrel- 
evant drapery.  This  doubtless  accounted  for  her 
unwillingness  to  admit,  on  any  other  ground  than 
that  of  her  artistic  temperament,  her  undeniable  talent 
for  drawing,  in  imagination,  ideal  sketches  of  every 
attractive  man  she  met.  Alingham  had  been  duly 
added  to  this  mental  portfolio,  as  a  simple  study  in 
three  tones,  —  handsome,  interesting,  titled.  She 
looked  at  the  sketch  till  she  became  fascinated  with 
her  own  handiwork;  a  not  uncommon  proceeding 
with  the  imaginative  women  who  occupy  a  middle 
place  in  the  latter-day  progress  of  their  sex,  —  the 
non-productive  idealists  who  are  too  gifted  to  find 
expression  in  the  baking  of  a  frosted  cake  or  the 
working  of  a  bit  of  embroidery,  and  who  are  insuf- 
ficiently endowed  to  contribute  to  the  world's  store 
of  aesthetics. 

It  was  significant  of  Mrs.  Gordon's  optimism  in 
all  matters  pertaining  to  the  affections,  that,  despite 
the  disastrous  wreck  of  her  first  marriage,  she  could 

50 


IN    THE    ELEVENTH    HOUR 

still  sketch,  —  in  fact,  this  accomplishment  was 
prominent  among  the  small  stock  of  resources  with 
which  she  began  her  widowhood. 

Alingham's  family,  which  was  wholly  feminine, 
and  unusually  gifted  in  the  wordless  expression  of 
grievance,  gave  him  to  understand  that,  as  head  of 
the  house,  he  left  much  to  be  desired.  His  oldest 
sister,  Millicent,  who  was  six-and-twenty  by  the 
parish  register  and  two-and-twenty  by  a  system  of 
common  enough  subtraction,  announced  her  engage- 
ment to  Baron  Eppstein,  a  Hungarian  banker,  with 
a  shade  too  much  profile  to  suit  her  family.  She 
had  met  Eppstein  the  winter  previous  on  the 
Riviera,  and  her  acceptance  of  him  had  depended 
on  her  brother's  luck  in  the  States.  Lady  Alingham 
had  lost  her  nerve,  and  feeling  that  she  must  econo- 
mise, frantically  drank  tea  at  two-and-six  the  pound, 
instead  of  her  usual  five-shilling  blend.  The  twins, 
the  Honourables  Maude  and  Muriel,  feared  that  their 
presentation  would  have  to  be  deferred  another 
season,  —  a  contingency  which,  in  view  of  poor  Mil- 
licent's  fate,  considerably  worried  these  prudent 
damsels  of  nineteen. 

Alingham  heard  about  the  two-and-six  tea,  the 
Hebrew  banker,  and  the  cost  of  court  gowns,  every 
time  he  dined  with  his  mother  and  sisters,  and 
would  come  away  from  these  little  family  affairs 
feeling  that  he  owed  it  to  his  womankind  to  propose 
to  Mrs.  Gordon  immediately,  and  that  should  she 
refuse  him,  duty  would  compel  him  to  abduct  her 
and  demand  a  ransom. 

Dinner  en  famille  invariably  drove  him  to  the  Cecil, 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

framing  jaded  proposals  on  the  way.  He  felt  that, 
considering  Mrs.  Gordon's  late  bereavement  and 
his  own  interest  in  another  woman,  an  ardent  pro- 
posal would  be  in  decidedly  bad  form.  But  the  first 
glimpse  of  Alice,  glowing  radiant  in  the  sorcery  of 
his  presence,  killed  loyalty  to  his  womankind,  wiped 
out  the  mental  drafting  of  his  offer,  even  shook  his 
sublime  faith  in  what  he  had  to  barter.  His  arrival 
at  the  Cecil  was  always  the  signal  for  tea-brewing  on 
the  part  of  Alice,  whose  ideas  on  the  subject  of  tea 
were  American,  and  unrestricted  as  to  time  or  cir- 
cumstance. The  fact  that  he  willingly  sacrificed  his 
digestion,  his  nerves,  his  British  prejudice,  and  drank 
tea  before  luncheon  or  after  dinner  with  the  impar- 
tiality of  an  Irish  maidservant,  was  greater  proof 
of  his  infatuation  than  the  writing  of  sonnets  or  the 
twanging  of  guitars  beneath  her  window  would  have 
been. 

Mrs.  Gordon  chose  to  see  nothing  in  Lord  Aling- 
ham's  insatiable  thirst  for  tea,  nor  in  her  young 
cousin's  appeal  for  longer  frocks  and  high-heeled 
slippers.  Some  men  liked  tea,  and  all  girls  had  a 
weakness  for  pretty  slippers.  It  did  not  behoove 
the  Cleopatras,  the  Ninon  d'Enclos,  and  the  Eliza- 
beth Gordons  of  this  world  to  cultivate  wrinkles  in 
tracing  the  sequence  in  such  facts  as  these.  Some- 
times the  grim  humour  of  the  situation  even  tickled 
a  smile  from  Alingham,  and  he  felt  hopeful,  for  no 
particular  reason  but  that  absolute  despair  is  difficult 
to  cultivate  at  seven-and-twenty. 

But  there  were  times  when  he  floundered  in  the 
depths  and  it  would  take  the  yellow  devil  half  the 

52 


IN    THE    ELEVENTH    HOUR 

night  to  renew  his  faith  in  himself,  and  persuade 
him  that  he  really  was  a  good  sort  of  chap  and  it 
was  not  his  fault  if  the  world  was  awry  and  a  man 
went  bankrupt  because  he  had  inherited  luxurious 
tastes.  And  once  the  yellow  devil  got  a  hearing,  he 
invariably  proved  himself  an  eloquent  attorney.  His 
pleading  would  take  the  sting  out  of  living,  and 
Alingham  was  content  to  sit  and  sip  and  sip  while 
the  clock  ran  away  with  the  night  and  the  yellow 
devil  fought  his  battles,  crushed  his  enemies,  and 
whispered  something  in  his  ear  about  the  Prime 
Ministership. 

And  when  he  had  sipped  till  he  lost  his  sense  of 
humour,  which  was  his  substitute  for  a  conscience, 
he  would  see  himself,  in  honoured  old  age,  the  patron 
saint  of  wild-oat  sowers  of  a  later  generation,  — 
young  men  whose  fathers  would  take  heart  in  remem- 
bering that  Alingham  had  run  his  course  and  been 
a  bankrupt  before  achieving  the  exalted  position  he 
afterwards  occupied  in  the  Government. 

And  when  the  day  would  look  in  at  the  window, 
gray  and  haggard,  like  the  uprising  of  sorrow,  and 
the  yellow  devil  was  exhausted  from  much  miracle- 
working,  a  blue-lipped  sodden  thing  would  fling  itself 
on  the  bed  to  enjoy  forgetting  that  it  lived. 

And  not  a  mile  away,  Alice,  too  uplifted  by  the 
exaltation  of  the  rainbow  world  into  which  she  had 
wandered  to  know  the  profounder  unconsciousness 
of  sleep,  would  dream  of  this  soulless  thing  as  her 
mind  floated  lightly  down  the  shoals  of  slumber. 

Alingham,  despite  his  ill  luck  in  the  States,  still 
had  faith  in  his  name  and  title  as  a  matrimonial 

53 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

talisman.  In  this  his  faith  never  wavered.  He 
might  tease  his  bothersome  old  uncle  about  landlady 
baiting,  he  might  speculate  as  to  the  sensations  of 
a  cold  kiss  from  a  revolver's  muzzle  on  his  temple,  — 
these  possible  alternatives,  however,  were  of  his  own 
seeking;  but  the  fact  remained  that  he  was  a  peer 
of  the  realm,  and  that  the  demand  for  peeresses  — 
American  peeresses  —  was  never  supplied.  His 
childlike  and  British  faith  in  his  name  and  title  kept 
him  loitering  at  Mrs.  Gordon's  side,  an  unavowed 
but  most  attentive  cavalier.  Why  anticipate  the 
inevitable?  Mrs.  Gordon  was  a  woman  of  excellent 
taste,  and  according  to  the  higher  standards  of  her 
own  country,  it  was  better  to  marry  a  bankrupt  peer 
and  lift  his  mortgages  than  to  wander  aimlessly  over 
the  earth.  Rich  Americans  appeared  to  have  no  other 
alternatives.  He  felt  a  dim  pity  for  himself,  as  one 
might  feel  who  was  forced  to  sell  a  splendid  heritage 
under  foreclosure,  and  found  even  the  magnificence 
of  the  price  inadequate  to  compensate  for  old  asso- 
ciation and  other  purely  sentimental  considerations. 
The  woman  was  going  to  get  the  better  of  the  barter. 
She  was  to  have  an  honoured  name,  one  illustrious 
in  history.  She  was  going  to  walk  with  ease  and 
grace  to  a  dignified  niche  in  society,  where  she  might 
look  down  on  the  struggles  of  her  countrywomen 
and  be  amused  when  it  suited  her  whim,  or  extend 
a  helping  hand  if  she  should  be  disposed  to  be  kind. 
And  she  was  to  walk  thus  to  the  goal,  unhampered, 
because  she  was  by  his  side  and  because  his  arm 
would  protect  her  from  the  jostling  crowd  of  social 
aspirants  who  struggled,  fought,  and  fell  by  the  way- 

54 


IN    THE    ELEVENTH    HOUR 

side;  and  he  was  there,  with  his  right  of  way, 
because,  some  centuries  ago,  one  of  his  ancestors 
had  amused  himself  by  making  and  unmaking  kings. 

For  what  could  she  buy,  in  that  raw,  crude 
country  of  hers  beyond  the  sea,  that  would  equal  in 
value  the  home  he  was  about  to  give  her?  She 
might  build  up  stone  upon  stone,  and  fill  it  with  the 
treasures  of  Ormuz  and  of  Ind;  but,  after  all,  there 
would  then  be  nothing  left  to  her  but  to  shut  up 
her  palace,  after  the  manner  of  her  people,  and  sail 
away  to  the  older  countries,  in  search  of  the  some- 
thing beyond  the  reach  of  the  dollar  in  all  its 
almightiness. 

So,  if  he  hesitated  to  say  the  words  that  were  to 
put  beyond  reach  the  dearest  thing  that  had  come 
into  his  life,  it  was,  so  he  persuaded  himself,  be- 
cause he  was  in  a  position  to  dictate;  he  was  offer- 
ing much  for  little. 

This  was  Alingham's  point  of  view  in  regard  to 
Mrs.  Gordon,  —  the  point  of  view,  however,  be  it  said 
in  justice  to  him,  that  a  man  reserves  for  his  solitary 
pipe,  and  is  then  obliged  to  remember  all  the  buffets 
of  fortune  as  an  excuse  for  holding. 


55 


CHAPTER  VIII 

A   DAY  IN   THE   LIFE   OF  A  WELL-PRESERVED 
GENTLEMAN 

THE  pressure  to  which  Uncle  Reginald  had 
been  subjected  as  guardian  to  a  bankrupt 
peer,  with  the  anxieties  incident  to  such  a 
wardenship,  did  not  present  their  depleting  account 
for  settlement  till  he  had  been  for  some  days  com- 
fortably settled  in  his  well-appointed  lodgings  in 
Half-Moon  Street,  Piccadilly,  where  he  made  the 
alarming  discovery  that  his  bite  at  life  was  feebler 
than  before  he  went  to  the  States.  His  morning 
bacon  had  lost  its  savour,  and  his  nights  were  turned 
into  nerve-racking  vigils  of  unrest. 

His  assumption  of  a  frantic  interest  in  life,  which 
for  the  last  ten  years  had  been  becoming  more  and 
more  of  a  painful  pretence,  settled  into  a  pitiful 
farce  from  which  any  exit  would  have  been  welcome. 
If  the  last  of  the  Plantagenets  had  consulted  his  own 
will  in  the  matter,  he  would  have  taken  to  his  bed 
and  sent  for  a  spiritual  adviser;  his  bones  ached 
from  the  youthful  capering  demanded  by  the  role  he 
had  been  playing  for  nearly  the  allotted  span.  But 
family  pride  would  not  permit  him  to  give  up  while 
there  was  the  faintest  hope  of  disentangling  his 
sister's  affairs.  According  to  his  philosophy,  it 

56 


A  WELL-PRESERVED  GENTLEMAN 

would  be  better  to  sacrifice  health,  digestion,  and 
the  last  pretension  to  a  semblance  of  youth  than  to 
be  branded  with  the  stigma  of  a  poverty-stricken 
family  connection. 

But  it  was  telling  on  him  horribly. 

He  could  see  in  the  cunning  arrangement  of  mirrors 
by  which  he  daily  studied  his  face  to  find  what 
progress  time  was  making  with  his  account,  that  the 
hieroglyphics  about  his  mouth  and  nose  spelled  truths 
that  not  only  he  who  ran  might  read,  but  that  the 
swiftest  runner  could  not  well  avoid  reading.  He 
bought  a  bottle  of  Bloom  of  Youth  at  an  American 
chemist's  in  Trafalgar  Square,  and  applied  it  every 
night  according  to  the  directions,  but,  despite  its 
insinuating  title,  it  made  no  appreciable  difference  in 
his  appearance. 

The  preparations  for  Mr.  Howard's  first  appear- 
ance in  the  morning  were  as  complicated  with  for- 
malities as  a  state  ceremony.  Trescott,  his  man,  who 
assisted  in  the  capacity  of  first  gentleman  of  the 
bedchamber,  was  acquiring  a  liberal  education  in 
diplomacy.  The  great  four-poster  in  which  Mr. 
Howard  slept  bore  about  the  same  relation  to  his 
matutinal  transformation  as  does  the  cabinet  to  a 
materialising  medium.  A  bell  within  its  curtained 
recess  would  convey  to  Trescott  that  his  master 
was  ready  for  his  tepid  plunge.  The  necessary 
preparations  for  this  function  completed,  Trescott 
would  retire,  after  having  announced  to  the  four- 
poster  that  the  bath  was  ready.  His  bath  over, 
Reggie  would  again  retire  to  the  cabinet  and  ring 
for  breakfast.  In  all  the  years  of  his  service  Tres- 

57 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

cott  had  never  yet  had  a  glimpse  of  his  master  in 
those  early  morning  hours  when  the  worn-out  wheels 
of  being  were  gathering  their  impetus  for  another 
effort. 

Trescott,  on  the  particular  morning  in  question, 
having  arranged  the  breakfast  on  the  table,  with  the 
morning  papers  and  a  little  sheaf  of  letters  close  at 
hand,  retired  a  second  time,  and  again  his  master 
emerged  from  the  cabinet  after  he  had  heard  the 
servant  close  the  door. 

Among  the  letters,  there  was  a  despairing  wail 
from  his  sister,  Lady  Alingham,  who  had  just  heard 
of  their  arrival  in  England;  two  invitations  to 
second-best  houses,  —  which  he  decided  to  refuse ;  — 
and  a  long,  ill-spelled  letter  from  Delphine,  asking 
what  was  the  matter.  Delphine  was  French.  Inci- 
dentally, she  was  bad  from  her  boots,  which  were 
several  sizes  too  small,  to  her  hats,  which  were 
several  sizes  too  large.  She  was  the  type  of  lady 
that  chronically  inquires  if  anything  is  the  matter. 

Reggie  breakfasted  slowly;  in  the  art  of  mastica- 
tion he  was  a  disciple  of  the  late  Mr.  Gladstone. 

Again  he  went  back  to  the  "  cabinet,"  rang  for 
Trescott,  told  him  to  remove  the  dishes,  and  not  to 
disturb  him  for  two  hours. 

When  the  last  of  the  Plantagenets  was  again  alone, 
he  locked  the  door,  went  to  a  ponderous  writing- 
desk,  unlocked  it,  opened  a  secret  drawer,  and  took 
therefrom  a  pair  of  heavy,  steel-rimmed  spectacles, 
and  glancing  furtively  around  to  make  sure  that  no 
lurking  eye  observed  him,  adjusted  them,  and  then 
proceeded  to  answer  his  sister's  letter: 

58 


A  WELL-PRESERVED  GENTLEMAN 

MY  DEAR  SISTER,  —  Ally  and  I  returned  from  the  States 
sooner  than  we  expected,  owing  to  the  outrageous  attacks 
made  on  the  poor  boy  by  their  sensational  press.  And 
while  we  were  assured  by  some  of  the  best  people  that  this 
sort  of  personal  attack  is  quite  common  and  by  no  means 
restricted  to  strangers,  and  that  we  should  do  well  to  ignore 
it  absolutely,  Alingham  was  so  distressed  by  the  unpleasant 
notoriety  it  gave  him  that  he  insisted  on  returning  by  the 
next  steamer.  And  very  fortunate  was  the  decision,  as 
subsequent  events  proved,  my  dear  sister.  We  met  Algy 
Gordon's  widow  aboard  the  steamer,  and  from  the  beginning 
she  and  Alingham  seemed  to  find  much  in  common.  Algy 
Gordon,  you  will  remember,  was  the  black  sheep  of  the 
Herefordshire  Gordons,  who  made  him  quite  a  handsome 
allowance  for  living  out  of  England.  He  went  to  the  States 
and  married  one  of  the  richest  of  American  heiresses,  —  a 
daughter  of  the  eccentric  old  chap  who  got  the  better  of 
poor  Guest  in  that  cattle  deal.  Gordon's  suicide  was  the 
result  of  a  difficulty  with  the  old  man  about  money.  He 
came  back  to  England  as  the  promoter  of  plumbago  mines, 
squandered  the  funds,  and  returned  to  the  States  for  more. 
The  result  may  be  surmised  from  Gordon's  suicide  a  fort- 
night after  his  return.  And  that  is  really  all  I  know  of  the 
matter. 

And  now,  my  dear  sister,  I  beg  of  you  to  lose  no  time, 
nor  hesitate,  at  any  sacrifice,  to  return  to  England  imme- 
diately, open  Dunstan,  and  invite  Mrs.  Gordon  to  stop  with 
you.  She  will  be  delighted  with  the  place.  It  has,  you 
know,  a  strong  Baedeker  element,  and  Baedeker  has  become 
the  Bible  of  Americans. 

Personally,  I  was  glad  to  return  to  England.  As  a  coun- 
try, America  is  a  vast,  incoherent  continent,  burdened  by 
its  own  bulk.  The  better  class  lives  in  Europe.  Its  politics 

59 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

are  run  by  the  Irish  in  the  East  and  the  Germans  in  the 
West.  Its  better  social  life  has  no  individuality,  being  but  a 
clever  imitation  of  ours.  Their  leisure  class  is  an  avowed 
failure.  The  men  have  no  idea,  either  of  sport  or  of  respon- 
sibility. They  spend  their  time  drinking  cocktails  and  mak- 
ing farcical  attempts  at  country  life.  It  is  all  very  stupid 
and  pathetic  to  an  onlooker.  But  of  this  more  when  I  see 
you. 

My  regards  to  the  girls  and  to  Baron  Eppstein,  and  thank 
Heaven,  my  dear  sister,  that  Millicent  is  acting  so  sensibly 
in  the  matter. 

Your  affectionate  brother, 

REGINALD. 

Reggie  then  declined  the  two  invitations  to  second- 
best  country  houses,  and  again  locked  his  skeleton 
in  its  closet.  He  took  a  hand-mirror,  carefully 
examined  his  face  to  see  if  the  spectacles  had  left 
a  mark  on  his  nose  and  temples,  saw  that  they  had, 
and  concluded  not  to  ring  for  Trescott  for  a  quarter 
of  an  hour,  the  which  time  he  whiled  away  with  the 
wickedest  of  French  novels. 

There  was  no  trace  of  the  skeleton  when  Tres- 
cott came  to  shave  him.  And  an  hour  later  he  was 
walking  in  the  direction  of  his  club,  it  being  his 
first  appearance  since  his  return  to  England.  He 
forgot  his  own  anxieties,  momentarily,  in  two  abso- 
lutely new  scandals,  made  an  excellent  luncheon,  and 
picked  up  a  good  tip  that  sent  him  to  see  his  man 
of  business  in  the  city.  As  he  was  returning  in  a 
hansom,  he  noticed  the  Duchess  of  Denborough's 
carriage  outside  of  Gerard's  in  Regent  Street.  And 
he  remembered,  coincident  with  seeing  the  Duchess' 

60 


A  WELL-PRESERVED  GENTLEMAN 

liveries,  that  he  had  not  ordered  flowers  to  be  sent 
to  his  wife's  grave  for  some  time.  It  was  just  the 
sort  of  errand  to  have  the  Duchess  surprise  one  in. 
Her  views  on  conjugal  fidelity  were  modelled  on 
those  of  Her  Majesty,  and  while  the  Duchess'  wine 
was  eloquent  of  her  widowhood,  it  was  worth  drink- 
ing without  a  grimace  for  an  invitation  to  Dunbarton 
Castle. 

But  the  great  lady  did  not  seem  disposed  to  dwell 
on  her  former  friendship  with  the  Hon.  Mr.  Howard. 
She  gave  him  two  fingers  and  bade  the  florist  carry 
her  purchases  to  the  carriage.  Reggie,  who  had 
expected  quite  another  sort  of  greeting,  ordered  his 
orchids,  but  in  reply  to  the  shopman's,  "  Where 
shall  I  send  them,  sir?"  Reggie  did  not  mention 
the  last  resting-place  of  the  departed  Mrs.  Howard. 
The  Duchess'  rebuff  had  made  him  very  low-spirited, 
and  sending  flowers  to  a  cemetery  was  not  exactly 
an  avenue  to  conviviality.  With  barely  a  perceptible 
hesitation,  Reggie  gave  the  address  of  Delphine, 
and  added  a  brief  note  to  the  effect  that  he  would 
call,  and  that  nothing  was  the  matter.  He  left 
Gerard's  feeling  that  life  was  indeed  "  daily,"  as 
a  celebrated  Frenchman  once  described  it. 

There  was  no  more  important  function  in  Regi- 
nald's daily  routine  than  his  afternoon  nap.  He 
would  not  have  sacrificed  it  for  a  royal  audience. 
Accordingly,  after  despatching  the  flowers  to  Del- 
phine, he  drove  back  to  his  Half-Moon  Street  lodg- 
ings, took  a  good  drink  of  Scotch  whiskey,  and 
proceeded  to  court  slumber. 

Delphine,  with  whom  he  had  made  an  appointment 
61 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

to  dine,  followed  as  her  profession  the  gentle  art  of 
making  courtesies  to  the  patrons  of  a  fashionable 
milliner.  She  would  meet  them  at  the  door  and 
display  her  wolfish  white  teeth  in  a  smile  that  was 
intended  to  be  amiable,  —  then  lead  them,  as  lambs, 
to  the  slaughter.  She  could  tell,  at  a  glance,  just 
how  many  guineas  could  be  wrung  from  a  victim 
for  a  hat,  and  she  never  relaxed  her  hold  for  a 
shilling  less. 

Delphine  knew  that  Reggie  was  a  most  guileless 
old  gentleman,  but  so  profound  was  her  knowledge 
of  human  nature,  and  so  great  her  skill  in  applying 
it,  that  she  never  let  slip  an  opportunity  of  impressing 
him  with  her  faith  in  his  ideal  state  of  wickedness. 
This  childlike  belief  in  his  depravity  touched  the 
respectable  old  man  as  few  things  could  have  done. 
Like  the  rest  of  us  he  had  his  unattainable  ideal, 
the  next  best  thing  to  a  realisation  of  which  was 
the  confidence  of  encouraging  friends. 

But  this  particular  dinner  with  Delphine  was  not 
a  success :  it  lagged.  The  host  was  an  unwitting 
death's  head  at  his  own  feast.  His  doleful  attempts 
to  be  devilish  only  accentuated  the  depressing  dul- 
ness  of  the  occasion.  He  was  so  tired  that  a  bowl 
of  hot  gruel  would  have  been  much  more  acceptable 
than  the  champagne  that  he  sipped  with  such  pitiful 
pretence  of  relish;  and  Delphine,  as  she  looked  at 
his  glazed  eyes  and  noted  his  trembling  hand,  thought 
how  awkward  it  would  be  if  the  recording  angel 
should  suddenly  close  his  account  as  they  sat  at 
table,  —  "  Mon  Dieu,  and  there  would  be  coroners 
and  such,"  —  and  out  of  pity  she  gave  him  her 
wickedest  smile.  62 


A  WELL-PRESERVED  GENTLEMAN 

"  Ah,  poor  Grandpa,"  she  thought  sympathetically, 
"  he  is,  as  the  English  say,  '  the  flesh  wilting,  and 
the  spirit  weak.' ' 

But  the  lingering  leaden-footed  moments  devoted 
to  the  pursuit  of  pleasure  came  to  an  end  at  last, 
and  Reggie  was  once  more  in  his  own  rooms  in 
Half-Moon  Street,  fretful  and  peevish  as  an  ailing 
child,  —  Trescott  bearing  the  brunt  of  the  iced 
champagne  and  grouse  which  were  already  beginning 
to  dispute  their  account  with  tired  nature.  Reggie 
swore  at  Trescott  roundly,  at  the  same  time  making 
excuses  to  detain  him ;  he  was  so  ill  and  weary  of 
it  all,  yet  he  dreaded  the  darkness  with  its  suggestion 
of  death.  What  if  the  dread  summons  should  be 
waiting  for  him  to-night  ?  —  the  summons  whither  ? 
The  sweat  rolled  off  his  wrinkled  old  forehead  at 
the  thought,  and  something  seemed  to  grip  his  entrails 
with  an  icy  hand.  The  curtained  bed  seemed  to 
close  in  upon  him  like  a  leaden  coffin ;  —  in  his  terror- 
quickened  mind,  he  saw  it  all  rehearsed,  the  comedy 
of  his  passing. 

The  bell  within  the  cabinet  would  not  ring  at  his 
accustomed  time.  Trescott  would  wait  half  an  hour, 
talk  it  over  with  the  cook,  dawdle  away  another  half 
hour  telling  cheerful  yarns  of  gentlemen  found  dead 
in  their  beds.  Then  Trescott  would  force  the  door, 
fling  aside  the  curtains  of  the  bed,  and  find  him  stark, 
with  staring  eyes  and  gaping  mouth.  He  could  hear 
Trescott  give  the  alarm,  and  see  the  foolish  con- 
sternation of  the  women  who  would  call  him  "  it," 
and  frivol  away  the  morning  talking  of  the  shoVk 
it  gave  them.  And  there  would  not  be  an  eye  in 

63 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

all  the  world  to  shed  a  real  tear.  His  sister  would 
drink  tea,  much  of  it,  and  babble  of  him,  but  in  the 
secret  drawer  of  her  soul  she  would  be  glad  of  the 
pittance  that  would  come  to  her  undowered  brood. 
She  would  mourn  him  in  crepe,  but  in  her  heart 
rejoice.  And  Trescott  would  be  glad  to  get  his 
clothes,  and  Mrs.  Grabbitt  would  be  glad  to  get 
his  rooms  to  rent  to  Americans  at  double  the  price,  — 
she  dare  not  cheat  him. 

What  Hell's  brew  had  he  drunk  to-night  to  make 
him  think  these  things  ?  But  they  were  true.  Had  it 
not  been  true  of  his  wife?  She  had  gone  to  her 
bed  the  Honourable  Mrs.  Reginald  Howard,  and 
upbraiding  him,  and  had  left  it,  — "  it."  Death 
had  given  her  the  whip  hand;  the  invulnerable  dead 
woman  he  had  looked  at  the  next  morning  had  had 
the  better  of  it,  —  the  ashen  face  that  had  stared  up 
at  him  accusingly  had  had  the  incontrovertible  last 
word.  The  long  silence,  the  lack  of  interference, 
the  unmolested  freedom,  in  which  he  lived  were 
more  terrible  than  my  lady's  tongue.  The  only 
ones  who  would  care,  should  he  die,  would  be  the 
men  of  his  own  age  at  the  club,  and  they  would 
care  through  fear.  —  Howard  gone  ?  Who  next  ?  — 
He  saw  them  mop  their  foreheads,  and  smiled 
grimly.  It  was  as  if  he  were  already  beyond  the 
reach  of  fear. 

"  O  God,  O  God,"  he  called  from  out  the  dark- 
ness; but  no  God  answered. 

Then  he  thought  of  the  woman,  the  one  in  all 
his  life  who  had  loved  him  for  himself.  She  had 
asked  no  favours,  —  no  questions,  for  that  matter. 

64 


A  WELL-PRESERVED  GENTLEMAN 

He  had  been  enough.  But  he  had  shoved  her  aside, 
and  she  had  been  dead  years  ago.  There  was  no 
woman,  not  one  in  all  the  world,  who  cared.  And 
again  he  called  "  O  God " ;  and  again  no  God 
answered. 

He  tossed  in  the  great  four-poster.  Then  the 
thought  of  the  chloral  bottle  came  to  him  like  an 
inspiration.  He  poured  out  a  dose  and  slept  long 
and  dreamlessly. 


IN  WHICH   TWO   LADIES   EMPLOY  MANY  WORDS 
FOR  THE  PURPOSE  OF  CONCEALING  THOUGHT 

MRS.  GORDON,  through  the  medium  of 
the  cottage  piano  that  occupied  a  corner 
of  her  sitting-room  at  the  Hotel  Cecil, 
was  interpreting  Chopin  with  a  timid  wrist  and  a 
hysterical  intensity  that  would  have  amazed  the 
composer;  Alice  was  staring  into  the  open  fire  with 
wide,  unseeing  eyes,  thinking  thoughts  that  excluded 
even  the  tumult  of  sound  at  her  elbow. 

Alingham's  departure,  some  few  minutes  previous, 
to  keep  a  dinner  engagement  with  Musgrove,  who 
still  held  out  tinned  meats  and  the  North  Pole  as 
alternatives  to  matrimony,  had  left  both  ladies  silent 
and  engrossed,  each  with  her  own  thoughts.  He 
had  mentioned  during  the  course  of  his  call  that 
his  mother  would  be  in  town  the  following  week, 
and  that  she  hoped  to  have  the  pleasure  of  calling; 
and  while  Elizabeth  Gordon  had  murmured  nicely 
restrained  conventional  delight  at  the  prospect,  still 
four  nocturnes,  two  waltzes,  and  one  mazourka  had 
not  furnished  sufficient  exercise  to  put  her  in  com- 
plete possession  of  herself. 

This  recognition  by  the  titled  lady  Mrs.  Gordon 
regarded  in  the  light  of  social  chrism  administered 

66 


MANY  WORDS  CONCEAL  THOUGHT 

by  one  who  had  the  power  to  confer  many  temporal 
blessings  upon  one  who  stood  sorely  in  need  of  them. 
Not  only  had  she  the  zeal  of  the  true  devotee,  but 
also  the  humility ;  for  what  she  was  about  to  receive, 
she  would  willingly  have  endured  the  flagellations 
of  the  early  martyrs.  Furthermore,  she  was  unembar- 
rassed by  Quixotic  notions  regarding  the  prolonga- 
tion of  her  widowhood.  Her  marriage  to  Algernon 
Gordon  had  been  so  conspicuously  unfortunate  as  to 
make  a  retrieval  of  the  blunder  almost  a  duty  of 
vindication  to  her  sex.  It  ill  behooved  the  victim 
of  so  humiliating  a  covenant  to  perpetuate  the 
memory  of  its  failure  by  a  too  obvious  loyalty.  A 
year  of  becoming  weeds,  she  felt,  was  a  sufficient 
concession  to  the  melancholy  circumstance. 

Again,  Alingham  was,  she  reminded  herself,  a 
suitor  of  whom  any  woman  might  well  be  proud,  — 
superlatively  handsome,  of  unimpeachable  lineage, 
not  rich,  perhaps,  but  with  a  competence  —  she  knew 
nothing  of  his  bankruptcy  —  and  with  the  ability 
to  make  a  career;  what  more  could  woman  want? 
His  title  it  was  that  sharply  pointed  the  apex  of 
his  perfections ;  —  coming  from  a  country  where 
nine-tenths  of  the  population  are  titled,  where  gen- 
erals, majors,  honourables,  and  captains  are  gener- 
ously awarded  these  distinctions  by  others  holding 
similar  patents  of  nobility,  —  where  the  very  chiropo- 
dist is  a  "  doctor,"  and  the  alderman  is  made  "  Hon- 
ourable "  for  life,  —  she  chiefly  valued  that  which 
could  not  be  imitated  by  admiring  fellow-citizens, 
despite  the  sincerity  of  their  admiration. 

She  was  infatuated  with  the  notion  of  him,  and 
67 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

having  decided  that  love  is  the  most  diverting  ingre- 
dient in  the  daily  portion  allotted  us  by  the  gods, 
she  decided  to  be  loved,  since  she  had  no  further 
capacity  for  loving.  Her  former  matrimonial  adven- 
ture had  sapped  for  all  time  her  limited  capacity  for 
affection.  She  was  a  miser  of  her  own  emotions,  but 
she  could  take  another's  with  both  hands;  Alingham, 
she  believed,  could  give  unsparingly  and  never  count 
the  cost.  In  return,  she  would  preside  at  the  head  of 
his  house,  never  wear  unbecoming  clothes,  and  help 
him  toward  his  career. 

The  prospective  call  of  the  Baroness  seemed  to 
promise  realities  in  place  of  day-dreams.  Cinder- 
ella's visit  from  the  fairy  godmother  who  turned  the 
pumpkin  into  the  coach  could  not  have  been  more 
opportune.  No  wonder  she  played  nocturnes  as  if 
they  had  been  triumphal  battle  marches;  for  her, 
time  seemed  written  in  a  jig  tune;  the  battle  march 
was  the  most  dignified  compromise  of  which  she 
was  capable. 

But  with  Alice  the  growing  complexity  of  the  situa- 
tion was  forgotten  in  the  one  supreme  fact,  —  she 
was  going  to  see  his  mother.  The  hallowed  joy  she 
felt  at  the  thought  of  Lady  Alingham's  coming  dig- 
nified the  prospective  visit  into  one  of  sacramental 
importance.  His  mother  was  no  alien  in  that  new 
world  that  love  had  constructed  from  the  sordid 
monotony  of  her  existence,  but  rather  a  sheltering 
divinity  that  supplied  her  crudest  need,  —  that  of 
being  understood. 

Alice  used  to  think  of  his  mother  in  the  darkness, 
in  her  little  white  bed,  while  the  sleep  goddess  stood 

68 


MANY  WORDS  CONCEAL  THOUGHT 

without  hour  after  hour,  trying  to  steal  in  and  seal 
the  eyes  that  could  not  close  on  the  wonder  and 
beauty  of  it  all.  And  she  would  see  the  outline  of 
his  face,  dimmed  a  little  by  age,  but  of  miraculous 
sweetness.  The  mouth  more  patient,  the  beauty  of 
the  bow  broken  somewhat  by  the  bit  of  restraint. 
The  eyes  would  look  into  her  own  with  a  steadier 
glow  than  his,  —  and  there  was  always  perfect 
understanding. 

"  Lady  Alingham  is  to  call,"  said  Mrs.  Gordon, 
wheeling  round  from  the  piano,  nicely  adjusting 
her  democratic  lips  to  a  beautiful  pronunciation  of 
the  title,  and  repeating  it  with  the  lingering  labial 
gusto  with  which  a  hungry  man  might  pronounce 
the  various  items  of  the  bill  of  fare  while  waiting 
for  dinner. 

"  It 's  really  quite  a  concession  for  her  to  come 
to  town  to  call,"  she  continued,  "  because  she  could 
have  sent  me  an  invitation  to  a  week-end  visit,  or 
a  little  house-party  or  something  of  that  sort.  And, 
personally,  I  prefer  to  have  her  come  up  to  town  to 
look  at  me  than  to  be  sent  to  her,  for  inspection, 
in  the  country.  It  would  give  me  an  uncomfortable 
feeling  of  '  carriage  prepaid.' ' 

"  And  there  would  be  the  anxiety  about  being 
returned,"  Alice  could  not  resist  the  temptation  of 
saying. 

"  Really,  Alice,  you  are  beginning  to  talk  at  last. 
Do  you  know,  I  was  dreadfully  afraid  you  were 
going  to  be  a  '  sweet  girl.'  Of  course,  you  can 
afford  eccentricities,  but  sweetness  is  such  an  unfor- 
tunate pose  —  there  is  really  no  demand  for  the  eau 
sucre e  type."  69 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

"  But  the  pyrotechnic  is  so  universal.  Besides,  if 
I  attempted  it  in  your  vicinity,  I  should  feel  like 
the  fifth  of  July." 

"  I  wonder  to  which  type  Lady  Alingham  belongs. 
It 's  a  dreadful  bore  to  have  to  meet  a  strange 
woman,  anyhow;  Schopenhauer  was  quite  right 
when  he  said  it  was  a  case  of  Guelph  meeting 
Ghibelline.  And  one  woman  with  a  title  is  equal 
to  two  without.  The  handle  is  to  the  woman  what 
the  claws  are  to  the  cat.  It 's  different  with  a  man. 
If  his  family  has  had  a  title  long  enough  to  forget 
it,  it 's  no  more  bother  to  him  than  pedigree  is  to 
a  prize  Durham.  It 's  only  women,  linoleum  lords, 
and  mustard  baronets  who  believe  in  the  Divine 
Inspiration  of  the  Peerage.  —  And,  oh,  I  almost 
forgot  Americans." 

Despite  her  flippancy  on  the  subject  of  titles,  Mrs. 
Gordon  made  a  pilgrimage  the  following  morning 
from  book-shop  to  book-shop  in  search  of  much 
literature  of  the  "  court-guide "  school,  and  spent 
many  hours  in  reading  up  titles  and  the  proper 
and  improper  way  of  addressing  them.  She  even 
went  the  length  of  locking  her  sitting-room  door, 
and  rehearsing,  four  times  in  one  morning,  the 
ceremony  of  receiving  Lady  Alingham,  —  with  a 
corpulent  armchair  doing  duty  as  her  ladyship.  She 
meant  to  come  through  this  affair  with  brilliancy, 
but  she  no  more  knew  how  it  was  going  to  be 
accomplished  than  the  rider  with  a  fence,  a  ditch, 
and  a  nasty  up-hill  scramble  before  him,  —  it  was 
neck  or  nothing  to  Mrs.  Gordon,  and  she  meant  it 
to  be  neck. 

70 


MANY  WORDS  CONCEAL  THOUGHT 

Poor  Lady  Alingham  had  called  on  so  many 
probable  daughters-in-law  that  the  situation  began  to 
have  all  the  perfunctoriness  of  church-going.  The 
Honourable  Millicent,  having  made  up  her  mind  to 
marry  the  Hebrew  banker,  did  not  feel  called  upon 
to  attend  the  ceremony  of  receiving  this  latest 
heiress  into  the  fold.  She  was  weary  of  extending 
a  prospective  sisterly  hand  to  every  rich  woman 
she  met,  and  later  of  having  to  withdraw  it. 
Moreover,  she  blamed  her  brother  for  the  distasteful 
marriage  she  was  about  to  make,  and  was  in  no 
mood  to  further  his  interests.  She  could  not  forget 
the  long  period  of  economical  exile  she  had  been 
forced  to  spend  in  continental  towns,  —  months  and 
years  that  ate  up  youth  and  opportunity,  and  had 
no  more  definite  results  than  the  scraping  together 
of  a  few  pounds  to  enable  the  head  of  the  house 
to  plunge  more  deeply  into  folly,  propose  to  heir- 
esses who  rejected  him,  and  try  to  retrieve  the 
family  fortunes  at  Monte  Carlo  and  the  race-courses. 

Millicent,  therefore,  did  not  feel  obliged  to  do 
further  violence  to  her  British  prejudices  by  calling 
on  the  ladies  in  question.  She  had  lived  away  from 
the  scene  of  the  American  invasion  so  long  as  quite 
to  overlook  the  fact  that  the  money  of  the  invaders 
was  very  well  received  in  the  best  circles.  Her  ideas 
on  America  and  the  Americans  were  still  in  the 
rudimentary  or  comic-paper  stage;  she  regarded 
them  as  a  singular  people  whose  great  wealth  alone 
kept  managers  from  capturing  and  exhibiting  them 
at  Earl's  Court  in  the  intervals  between  Kaffir  and 
Dahomey  displays. 

71 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

In  the  meantime  Mrs.  Gordon  worked  feverishly 
to  preserve  the  necessary  appearance  of  boredom 
regarding  Lady  Alinghanrs  call.  She  invested  in 
palms  and  photographs  to  soften  the  by-the-week 
look  of  the  drawing-room;  and,  at  the  last  minute, 
she  decided  in  favour  of  a  study  in  extravagant 
simplicity  at  Liberty's,  in  preference  to  anything  her 
own  elaborate  wardrobe  afforded  in  the  way  of  a 
requisite  toilet. 

She  was  already  word-perfect  in  her  lines;  she 
had  decided,  after  an  exhaustive  study  of  the  little 
books  of  the  "  Court-guide  "  school,  that  she  must 
address  her  Ladyship  by  her  title  once,  or  maybe 
twice,  and  then  not  refer  to  it  again.  The  con- 
versation, she  felt  sure,  would  almost  immediately 
turn  on  the  bleakness  of  town  in  Autumn  and  the 
desirability  of  settling  elsewhere  as  soon  as  possible. 
Then  she  must  deftly  turn  the  talk,  like  the  clever 
hostess  she  meant  to  be,  into  the  guileless  paths  of 
the  Zoo,  for  the  benefit  of  the  Honourables  Maude 
and  Muriel.  The  Zoo  and  Charlotte  M.  Yonge's 
books,  she  understood,  were  two  of  the  really  trust- 
worthy subjects  given  to  the  young  British  female 
for  discussion,  before  her  presentation. 

"  Well,  Alice,  and  what  would  you  like  to  do 
with  yourself  this  afternoon  ?  "  asked  Mrs.  Gordon 
at  luncheon,  on  the  day  fixed  for  Lady  Alingham's 
call.  "  Drive,  or  wander  about  sight-seeing  with 
your  nose  in  a  Baedeker  ?  Do  you  know,  you  '  sight- 
see  '  so  conscientiously  that  I  fancy  you  intend  to 
write  a  book,  —  one  of  those  ready-made  books 
that  are  so  popular  at  home  for  holiday  gifts,  — 


MANY  WORDS  CONCEAL  THOUGHT 

Somebody's  London,  Cardinal  Wolsey's  London, 
for  instance,  —  Dickens'  London,  or  something  like 
that.  Why  don't  you  do  '  Chauncey  Depew's  Lon- 
don,' with  the  jokes  expurgated?  I  think  it  would 
take.  When  I  write  a  book,  I  am  going  in  for 
the  hand-me-down  school  of  literature.  No  one 
has  yet  written  on  '  The  Grandmother  in  Mediaeval 
Art.'  That  is  one  thing  in  art  that  they  have  not 
yet  attacked.  I  must  begin  on  it  right  away,  or 
some  popular  clergyman  will  do  it  before  I  get  a 
chance.  Or  I  might  do  a  William  Waldorf  Astor 
calendar." 

Luncheon  had  been  an  oppressively  silent  meal. 
Both  Mrs.  Gordon  and  Alice  ate  little  and  seemed 
abstracted.  Mrs.  Gordon's  monologue  had  been  in 
the  nature  of  an  attack  on  the  silence,  rather  than 
a  desire  to  beguile  Alice  into  conversation. 

;<  You  forget,  Betty,  Lady  Alingham  is  coming 
to  call  this  afternoon.  I  don't  think  we  would 
better  go  out,  do  you  ?  " 

"  Oh,  so  she  is !  What  a  bore !  "  drawled  Mrs. 
Gordon,  quite  overdoing  the  expression  of  ennui 
she  selected  for  the  occasion.  "  Do  have  another 
chop,  Alice.  No?  I  must  order  stout  for  your 
luncheon  hereafter.  You  are  looking  quite  pale." 

After  luncheon,  Alice  arranged  some  flowers  in 
the  drawing-room  vases,  and  Mrs.  Gordon  vented 
her  superfluous  energy  on  the  piano,  thundering  out 
Liszt's  "  Rhapsodic  Hongroise  "  till  it  sounded  like 
the  expulsion  scene  from  "  Rip  Van  Winkle."  Mrs. 
Gordon  was  one  of  those  women  who,  while  they 
agree  with  Talleyrand  that  "  conversation  is  the  art 

73 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

of  concealing  thought,"  deprive  their  pianos  of  any 
such  fine  reserve.  Her  late  husband  invariably 
gauged  her  moods  by  her  music,  which  was  largely 
pedal  execution.  The  piano  bore  the  brunt  of  it,  all 
the  afternoon,  so  that  when  the  bit  of  pasteboard  that 
was  to  be  a  social  passport  to  Mrs.  Gordon  did  arrive, 
that  lady  was  subdued  to  just  the  social  pitch  she 
had  worried  the  piano  to  attain. 

Lady  Alingham  felt  her  British  assurance  recoil 
for  a  moment  in  the  presence  of  this  imposing  young 
woman  whose  slender  neck  rose  so  majestically  from 
the  caressing  draperies  at  her  throat,  whose  perfect 
hand  was  extended  at  just  the  right  angle,  and  whose 
"  So  good  of  you,  Lady  Alingham,"  was  all  the  most 
exacting  Englishwoman  could  demand  in  the  way  of 
intonation. 

"  Thank  Heaven,  she  has  not  the  American  voice," 
her  Ladyship  thought,  as  she  responded  to  Mrs. 
Gordon's  greeting,  and  with  a  dignity  quite  Episcopal 
presented  the  twins,  the  Honourables  Maude  and 
Muriel. 

At  their  coming  Alice  had  started  up,  confused, 
like  a  dreamer  who  feels  the  flash  of  a  light  on 
his  closed  eyes.  The  flood  of  tenderness  she  felt 
for  this  woman  who  had  given  life  to  him  who 
made  the  world  worth  while,  snapped  all  restraining 
fetters.  She  loved  Alingham  in  the  simple,  un- 
ashamed way  that  women  loved  when  the  world  was 
younger,  and  she  could  have  said  with  Ruth,  had 
she  followed  her  first  blind  impulse,  "  Thy  country 
shall  be  my  country,  and  thy  people  my  people,  and 
thy  God  my  God." 

74 


MANY  WORDS  CONCEAL  THOUGHT 

But  as  she  bowed  in  response  to  Mrs.  Gordon's 
introduction,  which  stated  no  relationship  to  "  Miss 
Dean,"  the  reverent  impulse  was  checked  by  the 
chilling  sweep  of  her  Ladyship's  lashes.  For  his 
mother  had  nodded  with  the  sublime  condescension 
that  the  British  lady  of  quality  reserves  for  the 
young  person  whose  talents  have  been  cultivated 
that  the  more  fortunate  may  benefit  therefrom,  and 
whose  innumerable  advantages  in  the  gentle  arts  have 
a  market  value  somewhere  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
twenty  pounds  a  year. 

The  portrait  of  his  dream  mother  disappeared  in 
the  presence  of  this  typical  Belgravian  hack.  And 
in  its  place  was  bitter  mockery.  For  a  moment 
her  brain  rebelled  and  there  was  chaos  and  the  baf- 
fling sense  of  loss;  then  the  mental  grappling-hooks 
took  up  the  situation  and  deliberately  began  to 
adjust  things  to  fit  her  dazed  perception.  She 
realised  it  was  a  chill  afternoon  in  Autumn  and 
the  street  lamps  were  feebly  struggling  with  the 
London  fog,  and  that,  within,  a  hard  old  woman 
was  chattering  to  an  equally  hard  young  one,  and 
that  two  girls  of  her  own  age  were  sitting  up  as 
straight  as  was  consistent  with  their  attitude  of 
effacement  in  the  maternal  presence. 

But,  oh,  the  ache  of  it  all!  For  the  first  time 
she  recognised  the  mask  they  were  all  grinning 
behind,  and  understood  their  language,  and  how 
easy  it  would  be  to  grow  proficient  in  it,  and  how 
the  barbed  speech  eased  the  barb-pricked  soul.  The 
room,  with  its  bowing,  smiling  women,  began  to 
grow  unstable,  —  it  spun  like  a  top,  and  the  flowers 

75 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

—  the  flowers  she  had  lingered  over  arranging 
because  his  mother  was  coming  —  grew  sickening  in 
their  sweetness.  And  the  voices  of  the  two  women 
bandying  their  eternal  compliments  sounded  far  off, 
like  voices  that  mock  and  chatter  in  a  fever. 

Her  sense  of  humour,  seldom  so  laggard,  stepped 
in  to  take  matters  in  charge,  and  she  could  feel 
herself  grinning,  partly  to  hide  the  hurt,  and  partly 
because  she  was  deciding  that  a  sense  of  humour 
is  the  laughing-gas  administered  by  a  merciful  fate 
before  wrenching  the  unyielding  tooth. 

She  was  conscious  of  a  growing  weakness 
for  the  young  ladies,  —  they  were  so  very  like  their 
brother.  She  noticed  they  were  dressed  exactly 
alike,  in  smoke-coloured  coats  and  skirts,  and  that 
the  pink  Liberty  scarfs  about  their  throats  matched 
perfectly  the  fine  blush  that  ebbed  and  flowed  in 
their  cheeks  every  time  they  spoke  or  were  spoken 
to.  Alice  found  their  pink-and-white  prettiness 
most  attractive,  and  while  they  were  about  her  own 
age,  the  way  they  blushed  and  effaced  themselves 
made  them  seem  years  younger.  Their  coils  of 
light  brown  hair  were  fastened  up  as  tight  and  slick 
at  the  back  of  their  Honourable  little  heads  as  if 
they  had  been  dressed  for  a  brisk  canter,  and  from 
the  topmost  quill  of  their  hats  to  the  toes  of  their 
little  walking-boots,  there  was  not  a  loose  thread, 
hair,  or  button  to  be  seen.  Their  toilets  were  planned 
and  executed  with  the  mathematical  exactness  of  a 
mechanical  drawing,  and  Alice  felt  her  own  sartorial 
efforts  hasty  and  irrelevant  by  contrast. 

They  were  so  young  and  soft  and  shrinking  that 
76 


MANY  WORDS  CONCEAL  THOUGHT 

it  was  almost  impossible  to  conceive  of  any  process 
of  social  evolution  that  could  convert  them  into 
matrons  of  the  class  of  which  their  mother  was 
typical,  —  red  of  face,  rotund  of  outline  from  the 
bearing  of  many  children  and  the  drinking  of  much 
brown  sherry,  battling  fiercely  for  establishments 
for  their  young,  —  religious,  bigoted,  self -satisfied, 
and  arrogant. 

But  they  gave  no  promise  of  these  painful  develop- 
ments as  they  sat  demurely  contemplating  the  pattern 
of  the  carpet.  It  was  the  Honourable  Muriel  who 
gathered  her  courage  to  break  the  long  silence  on  the 
part  of  Alice  with: 

"  Were  you  bad,  coming  across  ?  " 

Alice  nobly  resisted  the  temptation  of  saying: 
"  Not  half  as  bad  as  I  was  a  moment  ago,  when  I 
wanted  to  make  a  face  at  you  and  your  helpless 
little  sister,  just  to  prove  I  was  as  shocking  as  your 
mother  seemed  to  think."  But  she  answered  quite 
properly :  "  Oh,  no,  it  was  delightful.  I  grew  very 
fond  of  the  ocean  after  I  got  over  being  afraid 
of  it." 

"  Really,"  chorused  the  Misses  Alingham.  They 
pronounced  it  "  rilly." 

Their  mother's  eyes  wandered  in  their  direction, 
and  they  instantly  relapsed  into  a  pink-and-white 
silence,  during  which  they  heard  her  say  to  Mrs. 
Gordon :  "  I  hope  you  will  be  able  to  come  to  us  for 
the  shooting.  We  're  having  quite  a  small  party 
this  Autumn.  Dunstan,  you  know,  has  been  closed 
for  several  years.  We  have  been  living  on  the 
Continent,  and  Alingham  is  not  fond  of  it.  The 

77 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

shooting  is   not   particularly   good,   and   he  usually 
spends  the  Autumn  in  our  place  in  Scotland." 

"  We  shall  be  delighted,"  murmured  Mrs.  Gordon, 
remembering  Alice  as  the  primary  cause  of  her 
European  junketing.  And  the  Dowager's  eyes 
wandered,  enquiringly  this  time,  to  the  young  person 
who  was  of  sufficient  importance  to  command  a  share 
in  the  personal  pronoun. 

Slight  pause,  during  which  Mrs.  Gordon  decides 
that  things  can't  be  as  bad  with  the  family  of  Aling- 
ham  as  the  head  of  the  house  has  been  hinting, 
as  it  must  cost  tremendously  to  entertain  at  Dunstan, 
even  on  a  small  scale. 

Aloud :  "  I  have  always  wanted  to  stay  at  an 
English  country  house.  When  I  was  here  before, 
with  Mr.  Gordon,  he  had  a  great  deal  of  business 
on  hand  and  we  had  n't  time  to  accept  any  of  our 
county  invitations." 

Imperceptible  pause,  during  which  the  Dowager 
wonders  at  her  effrontery :  "  Does  n't  she  know  I 
knew  her  husband  was  absolutely  under  the  ban 
before  he  married  her  ?  County  invitations,  — 
fiddlesticks!" 

Aloud,  and  with  gratified  surprise :  "  Really,  and 
are  we  to  have  the  pleasure  of  enjoying  your  first 
experience  of  English  country  life?  That  will  be 
delightful." 

Imperceptible  pause,  during  which  Mrs.  Gordon 
speculates  on  the  probable  motive  of  the  house-party, 
decides  things  are  developing  too  simply,  and  con- 
cludes there  is  more  in  the  plot  than  she  understands. 

Aloud :    "  So  good  of  you." 
78 


MANY  WORDS  CONCEAL  THOUGHT 

Imperceptible  pause,  during  which  the  Dowager 
hopes  Mrs.  Gordon  is  not  expecting  any  lavish 
entertaining  at  Dunstan. 

Aloud :  "  We  are  to  have  quite  a  small  party, 
you  know,  just  a  bit  of  the  place  will  be  open.  It 's 
far  more  cosey.  My  health  has  not  been  equal  to 
the  responsibilities  of  Dunstan  for  several  years." 

"  U-m-m-m,"  murmurs  Mrs.  Gordon,  sympa- 
thetically, while  her  eyelashes  droop  at  half-mast 
for  the  departed  health  of  the  Baroness,  that  has 
certainly  left  no  traces  of  its  passing  in  her  brick- 
dust  cheeks  and  bright  blue  eyes. 

"  You  find  the  Continent  agrees  better  with  you 
than  the  uncertainties  of  —  of  the  English  climate  ?  " 
Mrs.  Gordon  finishes  with  deep  solicitude,  after 
floundering  a  bit. 

Imperceptible  pause,  during  which  the  Baroness 
asks  herself  if  Mrs.  Gordon  intended  that  for  a  fling 
at  their  financial  straits. 

Aloud,  and  with  perfect  truth :  "  I  find  the 
Continent  far  less  trying  than  England.  But  I  am 
really  looking  forward  to  Dunstan.  It 's  quite  an 
interesting  place,  if  one  can  forget  its  bleakness." 

Imperceptible  pause,  during  which  Mrs.  Gordon 
decides  that  Dunstan  is  probably  no  exception  to  the 
majority  of  English  houses  built  before  the  Victorian 
accession,  in  laying  claim  to  a  bed  slept  in  by  Queen 
Elizabeth. 

Aloud :  "  It  must  be  full  of  historical  associations." 

"Queen  Elizabeth  visited  it  in  1598  and  wrote 
her  name  on  the  window  of  the  room  she  occupied, 
—  Queen's  room  it  has  been  called  ever  since." 

79 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

Mrs.  Gordon  greeted  this  information  with 
properly  awed  silence.  Not  a  muscle  of  her  well- 
trained  face  responded  to  her  inward  hilarity. 

Imperceptible  pause,  during  which  the  Baroness 
decides  it  is  fortunate  Americans  delight  in  guide- 
book episodes,  there  being  little  else  left  at  Dunstan. 

"  I  hope  it  is  haunted,"  said  Mrs.  Gordon,  sweetly. 
"  I  should  like  my  first  country  house  to  be  haunted." 

"  There  used  to  be  a  ghost,  a  secret  chamber,  and 
a  dungeon  with  an  echo,"  smiled  Lady  Alingham, 
with  charming  indulgence. 

"  Really,"  answered  Mrs.  Gordon,  "  one  could 
hardly  hope  for  anything  more  than  the  ghost." 

Imperceptible  pause,  during  which  she  decides  to 
ring  for  tea;  and  speculates  if  the  Alinghams  have 
a  family  skeleton,  in  the  shape  of  a  royal  scandal; 
makes  up  her  mind  that  they  could  hardly  escape 
it,  having  complied  so  conscientiously  with  other 
requisite  traditions  of  a  great  family,  and  rings  for 
tea. 

The  Dowager  was  delighted  that  the  refreshment 
was  confined  to  tea,  thin  bread-and-butter,  and  cake 
of  an  innocuous  species.  Americans,  she  had  been 
given  to  understand,  carried  their  ostentation  even 
to  plum-cake,  pate  de  fois  gras  and  bonbons  at  tea. 
In  which  case  she  would  have  felt  obliged  to  attempt 
a  gastronomic  feat  or  two  in  the  interests  of  her  son's 
prospects.  And  that  would  have  spoiled  her  dinner, 
and  dinner  was  the  first  article  of  the  Dowager's 
domestic  faith,  even  when  it  consisted  of  but  a  joint 
and  vegetables,  served  in  the  sitting-room  of  her 
London  lodgings.  The  tea-cake  and  thin  bread-and- 

80 


MANY  WORDS  CONCEAL  THOUGHT 

butter  disposed  the  Baroness  in  Mrs.  Gordon's  favour 
as  few  things  could  have  done. 

When  they  had  gone,  Mrs.  Gordon  played  a  bril- 
liant scherzo  on  the  piano,  but  it  was  inadequate 
to  express  her  elation.  She  picked  up  the  trailing 
skirt  of  her  Liberty  gown,  and  danced  a  wild  pas 
seul. 

Alice  sat  still  and  watched  her  with  bright  hard 
eyes;  her  mouth  all  smiling  pretence,  the  soul 
within  her  languishing  with  sick  distaste  for  all 
things. 


81 


CHAPTER  X 

CONTAINING   SOME   MEDIAEVAL   HISTORY  AND 
A   SORDID   MODERN    DILEMMA 

IT  is  a  long  stretch  from  the  tea-drinking  of 
the  Baroness  of  Alingham  with  Mrs.  Gordon, 
in  the  Hotel  Cecil,  back  to  the  turbulent  reign 
of  his  Majesty  Henry  VIII.  of  England,  "  Defender 
of  the  Faith,"  and,  later,  arch-enemy  to  that  which 
he  had  defended;  but  one  follows  the  other  on  the 
slender  thread  of  sequence  that  slips  as  unobtrusively 
through  the  centuries  as  the  silken  thread  that  holds 
together  a  rope  of  pearls.  For  it  was  in  the  reign 
of  the  royal  Blue-beard  that  the  Alinghams  first 
became  great  folk,  and  waxed  fat  on  the  confiscated 
church  lands  that  the  "  Defender  of  the  Faith " 
appropriated,  to  reward  his  faithful. 

The  root,  however,  from  which  sprang  the  family 
of  Alingham,  or,  as  it  was  originally  spelled,  Alleyn- 
hame,  was  one  Geoffrey  Alleynhame,  who  flourished 
some  centuries  earlier.  Geoffrey  was  casting  about 
for  a  lever  with  which  to  lift  the  world,  when  the 
voice  of  Peter  the  Hermit  crying,  as  one  in  the 
wilderness,  for  gallant  knights  and  true  to  go  to 
Palestine  and  wrest  the  Holy  Sepulchre  from  the 
hands  of  the  unbeliever,  sent  Geoffrey  vaulting  to 
his  horse  ere  Peter's  cry  was  done  ringing.  Let 

82 


A    SORDID    MODERN    DILEMMA 

scoffers  who  are  pleased  to  regard  crusading  ances- 
tors as  the  first  parents  of  Mrs.  'Arris  study  the 
Alingham  arms,  and  they  will  find  the  three  Saracens' 
heads. 

Geoffrey,  therefore,  with  one  sweep  of  his  sword, 
having  smitten  off  the  heads  of  three  Saracens,  took 
therefrom  his  cognisance,  returned  to  England,  and 
left  a  hardy  crop  of  descendants  to  prick  their  way 
down  the  centuries,  joust  and  tourney,  fight  and 
sometimes  fall,  beneath  the  blazonry  of  his  triple 
infidel  harvest. 

They  were  good  friends  and  bad  enemies,  these 
roystering,  fighting,  drinking,  love-making  Aling- 
hams,  who  at  least  swaggered  picturesquely  in  the 
chorus  of  English  history,  if  they  left  the  middle  of 
the  stage  to  their  betters.  But  the  Wars  of  the 
Roses,  with  their  great  names,  crowded  out  lesser 
Thespians,  like  the  Alinghams,  and  decades  slipped 
by,  till  the  rosary  of  years  was  nearly  all  told,  and 
we  hear  of  Hugo  Alingham,  student  of  law,  in  the 
reign  of  that  jolly  Bowler  of  Skulls,  "  Bluff  King 
Hal."  Hugo  was  a  brilliant  student  of  the  law,  but 
a  better  student  of  men ;  he  watched  the  game  with  a 
shut  mouth  and  open  ears,  and  the  king  watched  him. 
Henry  had  need  of  eloquence  at  the  bar  to  reconcile 
the  people  to  his  tastes  for  novelty,  —  a  new  religion, 
a  new  wife  every  time  he  saw  a  pretty  face,  a  new 
aristocracy  when  the  old  proved  troublesome,  till 
the  eyes  of  England  ached  with  novelty. 

Young  Hugo  must  have  been  a  most  discreet 
gentleman  for  these  trying  times,  when  to  lose  one's 
head  was  to  have  it  picked  up  by  the  headsmen. 

83 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

For  not  only  did  he  retain  that  indispensable  member 
intact,  but  lived  to  cover  it  with  a  Lord  Chief 
Justice's  wig,  and  write  himself  Baron  Alingham  of 
Dunstan.  And  the  confiscated  abbey  of  St.  Dun- 
stan's,  with  all  the  lands  appertaining  thereto,  were 
his  by  royal  grant.  The  student  of  the  law  had  done 
well. 

John  Sylvester,  twenty-fifth  and  last  abbot,  did 
some  wonderful  cursing  of  the  king,  before  they  cut 
his  tongue  out,  which  was  manifestly  bad  repartee, 
and  apparently  served  no  purpose,  as  the  tradition 
goes  that  he  still  walks  about  Dunstan  on  stormy 
nights,  scolding,  threatening,  and  complaining,  — 
having  the  last  word  with  a  vengeance. 

The  Lord  Chief  Justice  died  in  his  bed,  where  it 
is  eminently  proper  for  Lord  Chief  Justices  to  die. 
His  monument  may  be  seen  in  Westminster  to-day; 
there  is  a  fine  bit  of  carving,  showing  him  borne 
upward  toward  lowering  storm  clouds,  by  four  cor- 
pulent angels;  the  epitaph  says  all  England  wept, 
while  Heaven  rejoices  in  the  judicial  presence. 

Queen  Elizabeth  visited  Dunstan  many  years 
after  the  death  of  her  sainted  father,  —  to  be  exact,  in 
1598,  —  and  she  wrought  her  stately  signature  —  the 
royalest  woman  ever  writ  —  on  the  window  of  her 
bedchamber. 

The  Barons  Alingham,  of  Dunstan,  having  passed 
through  the  needle's  eye  to  royal  favour,  by  means 
of  the  countersign  discretion,  should  have  remem- 
bered their  watchword.  In  fact,  their  politics  and 
religion  were  reckoned  trusty  barometers  of  the 
royal  mind  for  several  generations,  but  they  fell 

84 


A    SORDID    MODERN    DILEMMA 

away  from  prudence  with  the  Protectorate,  and  it 
is  not  till  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne  that  we  find  them 
again  really  prosperous. 

The  old  manor  that  had  been  partially  rebuilt 
from  Dunstan  Abbey  in  the  reign  of  Henry,  had 
been  a  marvel  of  early  Tudor  architecture,  —  a  two- 
storied  house  with  gables  and  attics,  the  whole  sur- 
mounted by  a  balustrade  and  pinnacles,  the  windows 
bays  divided  with  stone  mullions,  and  over  the  door 
the  arms  of  the  family  and  the  motto. 

But  Cromwell's  soldiers  sacked  and  burnt  it; 
and  Dunstan  was  but  a  sorry  wreck,  with  a  century's 
added  infirmities,  when  Baron  William  mended  the 
family  fortunes  by  marrying  a  lady  of  vast  wealth 
but  scant  lineage,  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne.  My 
lady,  whose  money  still  smelled  of  the  shop  in  which 
it  had  been  coined,  was  for  restoring  the  old  Tudor 
house,  that  "  had  been  in  our  family  so  long,"  as 
nearly  as  possible  to  the  Dunstan  of  the  reign  of 
Henry.  Not  so  her  lord.  He  had  known  the  dismal 
makeshifts  of  the  old  manor  so  long  that  he  craved 
a  "  restoration  "  that  would  include  the  more  diffuse 
splendour  of  a  modern  dwelling. 

So  Dunstan  became  the  anachronic  medley  that 
it  is  to-day;  the  Tudor  manor,  with  its  fine  old 
gardens  laid  out  to  suit  the  varying  weathers  of  an 
English  climate,  became  but  a  supplementary  con- 
sideration in  the  ambitious  scheme  of  renewal  that 
relegated  the  original  building  to  the  indignity  of  a 
back  wing.  The  architectural  medley  that  frowned, 
incoherently  impressive,  in  place  of  the  sturdy  Tudor 
structure,  was  as  wonderfully  ornate  within  as  with- 

85 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

out.  There  were  furlongs  of  corridors,  labyrinths  of 
rooms,  cellars  that  would  have  held  regiments  — 
everything  on  the  most  Titanic  scale.  The  building 
demon  had  taken  possession  of  the  Lord  of  Dunstan, 
and  his  Lady's  money,  that  wrought  the  miracles, 
seemed  as  inexhaustible  as  his  whims. 

In  the  white  salon,  however,  culminated  Baron 
William's  mania  for  the  extraordinary  and  the 
magnificent.  This  room,  designed  from  his  own 
inspiration,  was  an  oval  apartment  sixty  feet  in 
length,  with  a  classic  frieze  in  alto  relievo  by  Valdre 
embracing  its  entire  circumference.  Its  classic 
severity  was  the  wonder  of  an  age  wearied  by  the 
lavish  extravagance  that  had  supplanted  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  Protectorate.  They  were  all  there, 
forever  young,  forever  beautiful  by  the  divine 
inspiration  of  Maestro  Valdre's  art,  —  the  gods  and 
the  mortals  that  they  loved  and  hated. 

Paris,  forever  contemplative,  holds  the  apple  and 
ponders  on  the  surpassing  loveliness  of  women. 
Diana,  petrified  in  joyous  abandon,  pauses,  through 
endless  ages,  in  the  speeding  of  her  arrow.  Ceres, 
consumed  through  an  eternity  by  imperishable  grief, 
seeks  Proserpine.  And  so  all  about  the  vast  hall, 
the  smiling,  weeping  throngs  remain  as  they  were 
wrought,  and  may  not  die  and  forget  their  loves 
and  hates  and  hopes  and  griefs,  and  find  rest,  as 
we  of  the  flesh. 

The  white  salon  was  further  beautified  by  a  crystal 
chandelier,  or,  as  it  was  then  called,  a  lustre.  It 
held  a  hundred  candles,  and  flooded  the  room  with 
a  snowy  radiance  that  suggested  the  chill  glitter  of 

86 


A    SORDID    MODERN    DILEMMA 

winter  sunshine  on  Alpine  snows.  The  furniture  was 
in  palest  blue  damask,  that  added  to,  rather  than 
diminished,  the  chill  effect.  The  white  salon  was 
used  only  on  formal  occasions,  but  even  at  these  brief 
seasons  the  society  of  the  Olympians  proved  depress- 
ing, and  everyone  was  glad  to  retire  to  the  cosey 
Tudor  wing,  with  its  low  ceilings,  wide  grates,  and 
polished  wood  floors. 

It  was  the  Tudor  wing  that  Lady  Alingham  pro- 
posed to  open  for  her  autumnal  house-party.  It 
was  smaller,  cosier,  easier  to  heat  than  the  big 
eighteenth-century  portions  of  the  house.  Besides, 
the  Honourable  Reginald  had  told  her  that  the 
Baedeker  element  of  the  Tudor  wing  would  appeal 
to  the  Americans,  and  while  the  Baroness  had  not 
the  faintest  idea  of  what  he  meant  by  the  Baedeker 
element,  she  decided  that  the  Tudor  wing  should 
accordingly  be  opened,  with  perhaps  the  "  white 
salon." 

Abridged  as  was  Lady  Alingham's  list  for  the 
Dunstan  house-party,  she  had  had  considerable 
difficulty  in  compiling  it.  One  name  after  another 
came  up  at  the  family  councils,  only  to  be  rejected. 

"  Why  not  ask  the  Gorham-Greys,  Mamma  ?  "  Mil- 
licent  would  suggest. 

"  My  dear,"  Lady  Alingham  would  whimper,  "  we 
can't  have  the  Gorham-Greys,  —  the  last  time  they 
were  here  everything  was  so  different.  The  entire 
house  was  open,  there  were  plenty  of  well-trained 
servants,  and  —  the  piano  was  in  tune,"  she  would 
conclude,  rather  feebly,  hardly  knowing  what  to 
select  for  a  climax  from  out  such  general  dilapi- 

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LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

dation.  "  And  we  can't  have  the  Northamptons,  or 
the  Bensons,  or  the  Knolleys,  or  scores  of  other 
people,  for  the  same  reason."  Her  Ladyship  sighed ; 
she  found  it  more  to  her  taste  to  tickle  and  cajole 
the  demon  poverty  in  some  obscure  lodging  on  the 
Continent  than  even  to  recognise  it  before  a  friendly 
audience  at  home. 

"  Have  the  Hasletts,  Mamma;  they  go  everywhere. 
His  portraits  are  becoming  quite  famous ;  I  hear  the 
Princess  Christian  is  going  to  sit  to  him." 

"  Millicent,  we  can't  afford  to  entertain  uncertain 
people,  like  artists  and  writers  and  conjurors,  now. 
People  can  do  that  when  they  are  prosperous  and 
it  merely  passes  for  eccentricity,  but  if  they  are  poor, 
as  we  are,  it  gives  the  impression  of  having  begun 
to  associate  with  queer  people." 

"  Why  not  have  some  church  people?  "  suggested 
her  brother  Reginald,  in  the  capacity  of  advisory 
counsel.  "  You  might  have  a  bishop.  Bishops  make 
a  house  look  as  cosey  as  a  cat  does  a  cottage.  Or 
even  an  earnest  young  curate  who  works  in  the 
London  slums.  They  always  tell  such  interesting 
stories  of  drunken  cabmen  and  how  they  beat  their 
wives." 

"  H-a-h,"  sighed  Lady  Alingham,  "  I  have  n't  got 
the  courage  to  ask  any  church  people.  We  Ve  got 
such  a  bad  cook.  Your  poor  father  and  I,  Millicent, 
used  to  dine  with  Bishop  and  Mrs.  Damer  every 
Friday  in  Lent,  —  such  beautiful  dinners,  always 
ten  courses,  and  not  a  bit  of  meat  in  any  of  them. 
Ah,  the  Darners  were  truly  religious  people." 

Uncle  Reginald,  who  knew  his  sister's  love  for 
88 


A    SORDID    MODERN    DILEMMA 

a  wordy  ramble  in  preference  to  anything  that  might 
require  her  immediate  attention,  gently  tried  to  bring 
her  back  to  the  subject  in  hand  with: 

"  My  dear  sister,  if  you  are  afraid  your  cuisine  is 
not  good  enough  to  entertain  a  bishop  or  a  curate, 
why  don't  you  have  a  Ritualist?  I  hear  they  never 
take  anything  but  water  and  potatoes." 

"  Good  gracious !  "  said  Lady  Alingham,  "  how  do 
they  manage  to  preach  on  such  a  diet?" 

"  Potatoes  are  an  incentive  to  talk,  —  look  at  the 
Irish." 

"  Well,  invite  a  Ritualist  if  you  like,"  said  Lady 
Alingham,  sighing  and  contemplating  her  own  hands. 
"  I  only  hope  it  won't  be  depressing  to  see  him  eat 
his  potatoes  and  water." 

"  Mamma,"  said  Millicent,  "  let  us  have  Boadicea 
Byng." 

"  Why,  certainly,"  assented  Lady  Alingham.  "  I 
wonder  why  we  did  not  think  of  Boadicea  before." 

Boadicea  Byng  was  a  poor  relation,  poor  even  to 
the  trained  indigence  of  the  Allinghams.  She  had 
fought  that  depressing,  meat-tea,  penny-bus  sort  of 
poverty  with  the  dull  weapons  of  gentility  since  the 
death  of  her  father,  the  Reverend  "  Druid  "  Byng, 
as  he  was  called,  owing  to  his  life-long  devotion  to 
his  favourite  study  of  early  British  history.  Boadicea 
was  the  type  of  Englishwoman  that  always  looks 
three-and-thirty.  She  had  looked  that  age  since  she 
put  on  long  frocks,  and  it  was  probable  that  she 
would  totter  to  her  grave  at  a  ripe  scriptural  age 
and  still  look  a  petrified  specimen  of  elderly  young- 
ladyhood.  She  did  her  hair  in  a  door-mat,  like 

89 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

the  Princess  of  Wales,  and  she  had  an  acute  profile 
that  looked  better  in  a  photograph  than  in  real  life. 
She  would  be  certain  to  accept  the  invitation  to 
Dunstan.  A  fortnight  with  "  my  cousins  the 
Alinghams "  was  an  oasis  to  Boadicea,  in  the 
desert  of  boarding-house  life.  She,  having  no 
background  of  magnificently  squandered  patrimony 
to  pose  against,  like  her  cousins,  envied  them  with 
a  flattering  bitterness. 

"  There  are  the  Hamiltons,"   said  the  Baroness, 
"  and   Lady   Hamilton   is   an   American.      I   should 
think  Americans  would  be  glad  to  meet  over  here,  - 
though  I  have  heard  they  seem  never  to  know  one 
another  when  they  are  introduced." 

Her  brother  showed  his  teeth  with  amiable  con- 
descension. "  Having  Americans  under  the  same 
roof  in  England,  frequently  has  all  the  excitement 
of  a  chance  meeting  of  a  couple  of  gamecocks.  They 
have  the  most  deliciously  amusing  distinctions  of 
family  and  caste  in  the  States;  and  they  can  never 
make  out  why  their  standards  are  not  accepted  here. 
It 's  a  hard  blow  for  them  to  see  their  nobodies 
exalted,  while  their  aristocrats  are  put  down." 

"  How  very  singular ! "  said  Lady  Alingham 
vaguely.  She  was  apt  to  be  vague  at  all  times.  "  I 
think,  however,  I  shall  put  the  Hamiltons  down.  We 
can  cross  them  off  later  if  we  think  of  any  one  better." 

The  people  in  question  were  Sir  Henry  and  Lady 
Hamilton  of  The  Bucks,  Tyworth,  Staffordshire. 
He  was  a  baronet,  and  she  had  been  an  American 
before  her  marriage,  since  which  event  she  had 
devoted  her  untiring  energy  to  obliterating  any 

99 


A    SORDID    MODERN    DILEMMA 

traces  of  her  nationality.  Her  English  was  a  persis- 
tent, if  painful,  effort  to  introduce  the  broad  a  into 
every  word  she  uttered.  Lady  Hamilton  did  not 
have  "hands"  like  the  rest  of  mankind;  she  was 
such  a  loyal  Briton  as  to  rejoice  in  "  hahnds,"  to 
the  amusement  of  her  friends.  She  would  twitter 
away  in  this  language  of  her  own  discovery  on  all 
English  topics  from  the  Royal  family  down  to  cab- 
men's shelters. 

"  Good  gracious,  Mamma,"  said  Millicent,  petu- 
lantly, "  if  you  are  going  to  have  the  Hamiltons,  do 
ask  Lady  Hamilton  to  bring  an  interpreter.  I  never 
can  understand  a  word  she  says." 
1  "  Alingham  intends  to  ask  Usher  and  Forbes,  and, 
if  you  like,  I  will  ask  Conygam;  with  Ally  and 
myself,  that  ought  to  be  enough  men." 

"  Baron  Eppstein  is  coming,"  interposed  Millicent, 
with  chilling  dignity. 

"  Of  course  he  is,  my  dear,"  said  Uncle  Reginald, 
soothingly ;  he  was  far  too  shrewd  to  throw  any  ob- 
stacles in  the  way  of  her  marriage  with  the  wealthy 
Hungarian.  But  it  was  hard  on  the  old  aristocrat  to 
remember  always  to  include  in  the  family  circle  a 
man  with  the  obsequious  manners  of  a  head-waiter. 

Lady  Alingham  sighed  wearily.  "  That  will  make 
eight,  without  the  Ritualist.  Don't  you  think  that 
will  be  enough  ?  The  servants  we  have  been  able  to 
get  are  rather  hopeless." 

Her  brother  and  daughter  agreed  that  eight  guests 
was  a  sufficient  tax  on  their  limited  hospitality,  and 
Lady  Alingham  frantically  rang  for  tea  with  which 
to  fortify  herself  before  she  wrote  the  invitations. 


CHAPTER   XI 

SOME   PAINFUL  MAKESHIFTS  OF  AN 
ARISTOCRATIC   FAMILY 

IT  was  the  last  desperate  rally  of  the  Alinghams, 
and  individual  rights  and  wrongs  were  sunk 
in  a  common  issue.  The  Baroness'  surviving 
jewels  and  such  available  property  as  had  escaped  the 
entail  were  sold  or  pawned  for  the  final  coup.  The 
Tudor  wing  was  hastily  put  in  order  from  such 
resources  as  were  at  hand ;  the  result  upset  his  Lord- 
ship's sang-froid  as  few  things  could  have  done.  He 
winced  when  he  saw  the  bloom  of  centuries  in  his 
beautiful  old  home  replaced  by  a  depressing  cheer- 
fulness suggestive  of  a  Tottenham  Court  Road 
furniture  shop.  His  follies  never  confronted  him  so 
remorselessly  as  when  he  saw  the  old  Tudor  rooms 
stripped  of  their  furniture  for  the  first  time,  and 
his  mother  tearfully  explained  that  most  of  it  had 
gone  to  pay  his  Derby  losses  of  the  year  before. 
Poor  Lady  Alingham!  The  years  she  had  spent  on 
the  Continent  cajoling  poverty  in  one  pension,  hob- 
nobbing with  debt  in  another,  had  blunted  any  sense 
of  decorative  congruity  she  might  have  had  to  begin 
with,  and  her  efforts  to  make  the  sixteenth-century 
part  of  the  house  habitable  from  available  materials 
in  the  more  modern  building,  resulted  in  reproducing 

92 


SOME    PAINFUL    MAKESHIFTS 

the  architectural  incongruities  of  Dunstan  on  a 
smaller  scale. 

The  martial  blood  of  the  Howards  stirred  in  the 
Baroness'  veins  as  she  personally  led  marauding 
expeditions  to  the  latter-built  portions  of  Dunstan, 
where  gold-framed  brocaded  furniture  representing 
the  florid  taste  of  the  eighteenth  century  abounded. 
And  carrying  off  such  specimens  as  had  a  leg  to 
stand  on,  she  courageously  set  them  down  among 
their  sombre  Tudor  surroundings. 

Louis  Seize  monstrosities  in  gilt  and  brocade  threw 
brazen  reflections  on  the  brown  polished  floor  of 
what  had  once  been  the  monks'  refectory.  Grim 
armour,  swords,  shields,  trophies  of  the  chase,  hang- 
ing from  the  great  oaken  beams  overhead,  were  mul- 
tiplied in  frivolous  Venetian  mirrors.  And  there,  on 
either  side  of  the  huge  fireplace,  like  English  and 
Frenchmen  who  meet  on  a  journey  and  glower  be- 
cause they  do  not  speak  the  same  language,  a  sturdy 
oaken  settle  with  high  carved  back  scowled  at  a 
fauteuil  of  the  Empire  period. 

Chippendale  chairs  and  sofas,  perching  on  long 
thin  legs,  like  pullets,  apparently  pricked  their  way 
through  the  heterogeneous  melee.  Ugly  modern 
draperies,  in  Oriental  design  from  Manchester,  hung 
irrelevantly  where  fine  old  tapestries  had  been,  or 
covered  gaps  from  which  pictures  had  departed  to 
take  their  place  beneath  the  auctioneer's  hammer. 

Plants  from  London  that  would  bloom  once  with 
the  lavish  prodigality  of  a  horticulturist's  catalogue, 
added  a  note  of  theatrical  cheerfulness.  It  was  like 
a  stage  scene,  this  bringing  together  the  best  for  the 

93 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

climax,  and  the  unreal  quality  of  it  sometimes 
haunted  the  Baroness  like  a  nightmare. 

And  this  theatrical  effect  was  not  diminished  by 
the  appearance  of  the  servants'  hall,  that  added  the 
necessary  comic  element.  Drillford  village  had  been 
hastily  canvassed  for  the  necessary  domestic  staff, 
but  Drillford  had  not  responded  to  the  call  of  its 
bankrupt  lord  with  the  alacrity  of  the  loyal  villagers 
of  fiction. 

The  faith  of  the  Baroness,  however,  remained 
secure  in  Tripps,  now  landlord  of  the  "  Alingham 
Arms,"  but  once  butler  to  the  family.  Tripps  had 
prospered  in  the  service  of  the  Alinghams,  and  was 
still  sufficiently  awed  to  grow  pink  and  feel  unworthy 
whenever  any  of  the  family  nodded  to  him. 

Tripps  not  only  agreed  to  resume  the  Alingham 
livery  for  the  house-party,  but  to  help  Brackett,  the 
housekeeper,  secure  the  necessary  domestic  staff  at 
Drillford.  Lady  Alingham  graciously  inquired  after 
Mrs.  Tripps  and  the  baby  —  it  was  always  safe  to 
inquire  after  the  baby  in  the  Tripps  household; 
babies  were  perennial  there. 

The  Alingham  liveries  had  been  gorgeous  affairs 
in  the  days  when  the  family  had  been  a  power  in 
the  county.  Yellow  small-clothes  and  claret-coloured 
coats  made  the  Alingham  Jeemes  an  object  of  envy 
in  Drillford  circles,  below  stairs;  but  it  had  been 
many  a  day  since  the  liveries  had  been  replaced. 
Tripps'  hastily  mustered  staff  were  of  a  size  and 
shape  wholly  at  variance  with  their  predecessors. 
Even  Tripps  himself  was  short  and  rotund,  while  the 
last  butler  had  been  tall  and  spare.  The  yellow  small- 

94 


SOME    PAINFUL    MAKESHIFTS 

clothes  gripped  poor  Tripps,  and  would  not  have  done 
with  him  at  the  knee  but  pursued  him  half-way  down 
the  calf.  The  footmen  were  each  misfitted  according 
to  his  size;  a  glance  at  the  servants'  hall  led  one  to 
expect  jokes  and  a  chorus. 

The  pathetic  humour  of  the  servants'  hall  goaded 
Lady  Alingham  to  desperation.  At  sight  of  it  she 
lost  her  nerve,  took  to  her  room,  and  wept  inter- 
mittently for  a  day  and  a  night.  She  was  one  of 
those  women  who  would  as  willingly  appear  without 
their  clothes  as  without  their  martyr's  halo.  The 
dignity  of  her  sacrifices  was  always  marred  by  a 
slightly  reddened  nose  or  a  damp  pocket-handker- 
chief; her  tragedies  were  always  prolonged  to 
comedies.  She  would  undoubtedly  have  walked  to 
the  scaffold  for  her  children  if  occasion  called  for 
it,  but  she  would  have  whimpered  on  her  way  thither 
about  the  poor  quality  of  her  last  cup  of  tea  or 
of  something  equally  trivial. 

Having  pawned  her  remaining  jewels,  sold  the 
pictures,  and  grasped  occasion  with  no  uncertain 
hand,  it  was  characteristic  of  her  that  she  should 
take  to  her  room  and  weep,  because  the  liveries  were 
shabby  and  did  not  fit. 

The  Baroness  belonged  to  that  most  unfortunate 
of  all  types,  —  that  which  heroically  bears  the  heat 
and  burden  of  the  day,  only  to  fall  by  the  wayside 
when  success  is  at  hand. 

Boadicea  Byng's  early  arrival  at  Dunstan  with 
one  neat  spinsterial  trunk  from  which  she  extracted 
gowns  suitable  for  all  the  exigencies  of  social  life, 
each  in  exactly  the  same  state  of  crystallised  shabbi- 

95 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

ness  as  to  the  others,,  struck  cold  chills  to  the  heart 
of  Millicent,  and  added  new  charms  to  the  profile  of 
Baron  Eppstein.  She  was  almost  fond  of  him;  was 
he  not  the  avenue  of  escape  from  the  horrors  of 
poverty-stricken  spinsterhood  ? 

The  twins,  who  shared  the  roseate  temperament 
of  their  brother,  regarded  life  at  Dunstan  in  the 
nature  of  a  holiday ;  the  absurdly  fitting  liveries,  the 
incongruities  of  the  furniture,  seemed  comparatively 
luxurious  to  a  taste  moulded  on  the  banalities  of 
Continental  pensions.  Even  Boadicea  conveyed  no 
awful  warning  to  them,  —  such  being  the  heavenly 
optimism  of  youth.  The  various  party  invited  to 
Dunstan  for  autumnal  diversion  was  beginning  to 
arrive;  the  guests  were  typically  illustrative  of  that 
modern  blending  of  social  strata  that  seems  to  be 
replacing  the  distinct  aloofness  of  caste  characteristic 
of  more  primitive  social  periods.  The  only  repre- 
sentatives of  the  old  aristocracy  were  the  hostess 
and  her  immediate  family;  Baron  Eppstein  ex- 
pressed the  passing  deification  of  Mammon;  politics 
and  Anglomania,  reduced  to  their  simplest  terms, 
were  represented  by  Sir  Henry  and  Lady  Hamilton ; 
the  obligatory  bachelor  element  by  Captain  Usher 
and  Clyde  Forbes,  the  eminent  counsel ;  and  Boadicea 
filled  the  role  of  faded  spinsterial  foil  for  the  more 
vivid  charms  of  her  cousins.  Uncle  Reginald  missed 
the  presence  of  those  useful  persons  in  society  who 
are  nothing  particular  in  themselves  but  are  under- 
stood to  be  acquainted  with  the  best  of  everything, 
—  nonchalant  social  connoisseurs  who  fill  up  the  gaps 
of  autumnal  entertainments  and  stand  in  the  same 

96 


SOME    PAINFUL    MAKESHIFTS 

relationship  to  house-parties  as  do  the  well-dressed 
supers  to  a  brilliant  stage  tableau. 

The  deferred  arrival  of  Mrs.  Gordon  and  her 
young  cousin  added  an  element  of  tension  to  the 
company  already  assembled ;  their  attempts  at  serious 
diversion  were  hampered  by  a  consciousness  that  the 
star  had  not  yet  arrived,  and  the  expectation  mingled 
with  curiosity  absorbed  them  to  the  exclusion  of 
other  things. 


97 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE   STAR   EFFECTS  A   CAREFULLY   DELAYED 
ENTRANCE 

ALINGHAM  met  the  ladies  at  Drillford  in 
response  to  a  wire,  and  handed  them  into 
the  old   family  brougham,   that  impressed 
Mrs.  Gordon  as  being  a  cross  between  a  hearse  and 
a   stage-coach.     It  was   heavily  padded   and   smelt 
faintly  musty,  despite  its  lowered  windows. 

"  We  were  so  disappointed  at  not  being  able  to 
come  down  on  Friday,  as  we  at  first  expected,"  began 
Mrs.  Gordon,  "  but  I  was  detained  in  town  by  a 
stupid  solicitor  whom  I  really  had  to  see;  and  he 
was  as  slow  as  an  hour-glass;  we  have  nothing  in 
the  States,  not  even  excepting  its  geological  forma- 
tion, that  is  as  slow  as  your  English  law  and  its 
interminable  processes.  So  you  see  why  I  was 
cruelly  cut  off  from  last  Sunday  at  Dunstan,  and  I 
adore  a  Sunday  in  the  country.  I  can  never  make 
up  my  mind  whether  it  is  the  service  or  the  mid-day 
dinner  that  makes  me  feel  so  sanctified,  —  but  I 
forgot,  you  don't  have  mid-day  dinner  in  England. 
It 's  only  in  the  United  States  that  we  sacrifice  our 
digestion  to  our  religion." 

Mrs.  Gordon's  dramatic  work  was  invariably  so 
excellent  that  it  was  hardly  necessary  for  her  to 
make  out  such  an  elaborate  case  regarding  the  apoc- 

98 


A    DELAYED    ENTRANCE 

ryphal  solicitor.  She  had  carefully  timed  her  visit 
to  Drill  ford  so  as  to  be  the  last  to  arrive.  She 
wanted  them  all  to  be  a  little  bored  with  each  other 
before  she  should  appear  on  the  scene  to  revive 
flagging  interest,  challenge  criticism,  and  win  ap- 
plause, —  in  short,  be  the  heroine  in  an  admired  play 
without  the  pangs  of  art.  The  incident  of  the  solici- 
tor only  serves  to  show  what  a  conscientious  worker 
she  was. 

The  drive  through  .the  park  was  obscured  by  a 
cloud-like  mist  that  hung  heavily  on  the  earth  after 
the  long  rain,  filling  the  humid  air  with  the  smell 
of  fallen  leaves  mingled  with  rain-soaked  earth. 
The  timber  in  the  park  was  magnificent,  —  giant 
oaks  whose  time-blackened  trunks  recalled  the  peace- 
ful solitude  of  another  age.  In  all  the  ups  and  downs 
of  the  family  history  no  Alingham  had  ever  permitted 
the  wanton  swing  of  a  woodsman's  axe,  since  the 
day  that  Henry  took  the  Abbey  from  the  monks  and 
gave  it  to  his  Lord  Chief  Justice. 

The  carriage  rolled  heavily  along  the  drive,  the 
ill-repair  of  which  was  made  apparent  now  and  then 
by  a  lurch,  as  the  heavy  vehicle  passed  over  some 
bad  spot  in  the  road.  The  monotonous  whirr  of  the 
wheels  soothed  Alice  into  a  state  of  dreamy  con- 
tent in  which  she  was  conscious  of  an  undefinable 
pleasure,  a  subtle  sense  of  kinship  in  being  with 
Alingham  in  his  own  country,  in  rumbling  along  with 
him  in  this  ridiculous  old  coach  over  his  own  land. 
Nor  was  he  wholly  unconscious  of  her  thoughts,  that 
fluttered  toward  him  like  a  flock  of  homing  birds, 
each  bearing  its  message  of  tenderness. 

99 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

Her  mind  wandered  back  to  a  certain  fairy-tale 
that  had  been  a  favourite  in  her  pinafore  days,  —  a 
tale  in  which  the  conventionally  beautiful  princess 
with  the  trailing  golden  hair  had,  after  a  series  of 
disheartening  adventures,  finally  stepped  into  the  car- 
riage with  the  prince,  and  was  whirled  off  to  be  happy 
forever  afterward.  Just  why  the  princess  should 
have  had  no  Betty  Gordon  to  put  up  with  on  her 
drive,  Alice  had  wandered  too  far  into  the  land  of 
Nod  to  answer.  The  lumbering  old  coach  seemed 
to  rise  and  fall  through  the  autumnal  twilight,  Mrs. 
Gordon  disappeared  in  the  delightful  manner  the  de 
trop  have  of  disappearing  in  dreams,  and  the  golden 
journey  through  time  and  space  that  had  begun  so 
gloriously  for  her  and  the  prince  was  abruptly  ter- 
minated by  the  sudden  stop  of  the  carriage  before 
Dunstan  Hall. 

Before  her  she  saw  a  great  mass  of  stone  squarely 
outlined  against  a  leaden  sky,  —  a  flight  of  many 
steps  ending  in  huge  columns,  the  whole  looking  dark 
and  inhospitable  but  for  the  broad  stream  of  light 
that  flowed  through  the  open  doors. 

"  Please  stop  in  the  carriage  till  I  come  for  you, 
Miss  Dean,"  Lord  Alingham  said,  as  he  offered  his 
arm  to  Mrs.  Gordon ;  "  these  steps  are  treacherously 
slippery  in  wet  weather." 

She  waited  for  him  without  stirring,  unconsciously 
following  an  impulse  of  blind  obedience. 

He  came  back  a  moment  later.  The  twilight  had 
deepened,  and  the  gathering  darkness  was  full  of 
vague  formless  shadows,  like  the  fantastic  impression 
of  night  we  know  in  dreams.  The  deeply  penetrating 

100 


A    DELAYED    ENTRANCE 

stillness  seemed  to  throb  in  its  intensity.  The  exul- 
tation of  this  moment  snatched  from  the  dreary 
mechanism  of  days  and  duties  in  which  neither 
had  heart  nor  interest,  was  upon  them.  There  was  a 
litany  of  love  in  the  way  he  spoke  her  name,  and  an 
eloquent  response  in  her  shy  silence. 

"  We  are  home  at  last,  Alice,"  he  said,  as  they 
began  to  mount  the  slippery  steps  with  slow  prolonga- 
tion. The  light  streamed  down  from  the  open  doors 
in  welcome.  In  the  hall  they  could  discern  expec- 
tant figures.  It  would  have  been  thus  if  he  had  been 
bringing  her  home  his  bride.  To  the  man  with  his 
head  already  in  a  noose  of  his  own  knotting,  there 
was  an  agony  of  realisation  in  this  home-coming  that 
made  him  draw  his  breath  sharply  as  if  he  were  under 
the  surgeon's  knife.  But  the  girl  asked  no  questions 
of  the  fates.  She  was  with  him  for  the  moment. 
What  mattered  the  future? 

"  Are  you  tired?  "  he  said,  when  they  had  reached 
the  top. 

"  No,"  she  answered,  with  that  appalling  sim- 
plicity that  was  more  dangerous  to  him  than  the 
most  subtle  coquetry.  "  I  am  sorry  there  are  no 
more." 

And  he  who  had  fed  on  the  honeycomb  of  women 
since  he  was  a  stripling,  and  could  checkmate  their 
every  move  by  one  more  skilful,  found  himself 
blushing  like  a  rustic  in  the  hands  of  a  village 
coquette. 

Lady  Alingham  greeted  them  in  the  great  hall 
that  was  bleak  and  bare  and  brilliantly  lighted,  then 
led  the  way  through  low-ceiled,  oak-beamed  passages 

101 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

to  the  sixteenth-century  portion  of  the  house,  that  was 
imposing  despite  its  incongruities.  The  room  in 
which  tea  was  being  served  was  at  its  best  at  this 
hour;  firelight  and  wax  tapers  are  good  to  things  of 
a  past  generation.  The  logs  that  burned  and  crackled 
in  the  wide  fireplace  threw  shifting  lights  on  the  bits 
of  armour  and  trophies  of  the  chase,  —  for  the  Aling- 
hams  had  been  mighty  Nimrods  in  their  day,  and 
the  proofs  of  their  skill  lived  after  them.  Full-length 
portraits  with  deep  backgrounds  inserted  in  the  oaken 
panelling  enlarged  the  scene  and  mellowed  the  crude 
makeshifts  of  the  present.  The  ceiling  was  low 
enough  to  enable  the  observer  to  decipher  the  various 
coats  of  arms  that  glowed  with  rich  colours  between 
the  oaken  sockets  when  a  flare  of  firelight  threw  an 
illuminating  beam  toward  them. 

The  rose-shaded  waxen  tapers  in  their  quaint 
wooden  sconces  dispensed  marvellous  complexions, 
irrespective  of  age,  to  the  assembled  company.  The 
faint  tinkle  of  tea-things  mingled  with  the  subdued 
murmur  of  English  voices,  with  now  and  then  a  low 
ripple  of  laughter,  produced  a  delightful  impression 
of  warmth  and  comfort  on  the  travellers,  who  were 
tired  and  chilled  with  their  long  drive. 

Alice  thought  Lady  Alingham  less  like  a  petti- 
coated  edition  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington  than  when 
she  had  called  at  the  Cecil ;  the  atmosphere  of  roseate 
domesticity  robbed  even  her  Ladyship's  profile  of 
some  of  its  austerity.  Millicent  poured  out  tea  for 
them  in  flowered  Sevres  cups  which  Baron  Eppstein 
brought  to  them  with  servile  politeness. 

"  Confound  the  fellow,"  thought  Alingham,  "  why 
1 02 


A    DELAYED    ENTRANCE 

is  he  always  bowing  like  a  head-waiter?    I  know  I 
shall  forget  some  time  and  give  him  a  tip." 

Eppstein's  manner  toward  Millicent  was  that  of  a 
grateful  cat,  who,  while  enjoying  the  privilege  of 
purring  in  the  family  circle,  does  not  forget  the 
time  he  wandered  a  pariah,  and  realises  that  he  might 
be  wandering  yet,  had  not  the  daughter  of  the  house 
vouchsafed  him  her  protection.  He  never  seemed 
to  be  at  ease  with  the  family  of  his  betrothed,  unless 
he  was  handing  a  cup  of  tea  or  picking  up  something 
that  had  accidentally  dropped.  Millicent  tried  to 
restrain  him  from  performing  these  social  chores 
with  such  unflagging  diligence,  but  he  accomplished 
them  with  so  much  celerity  that  she  seldom  had  a 
chance  to  interfere. 

Mrs.  Gordon  could  not  have  wished  for  a  more 
satisfactory  impression  than  she  created  at  Dunstan. 
She  had  barely  entered  the  room  before  the  men 
decided  she  was  "  stunning,"  and  the  women  hastened 
to  assure  themselves  that  she  was  not  really  beautiful, 
only  effective. 

The  lines  in  Lady  Alingham's  face  relaxed.  She 
looked  ten  years  younger  as  she  saw  the  impression 
Mrs.  Gordon  had  made.  Things  were  so  much  better 
than  she  had  expected.  This  prospective  daughter- 
in-law  might  have  talked  through  her  nose,  or  been 
uncomfortably  intellectual  or  stupidly  philanthropic. 
It  was  indeed  providential  that  she  had  escaped  the 
nine-and-ninety  panaceas  that  seem  to  be  the  resource 
of  the  rich  nowadays  to  make  their  money  bearable. 
Lady  Alingham  drank  her  second  cup  of  tea  with 
gratitude. 

103 


LORD    ALINGHAM,  BANKRUPT 

Uncle  Reginald,  who  had  been  obliged  to  take 
to  his  bed  after  his  little  indisposition  and  revert  to 
a  milk  diet,  together  with  the  constant  attendance  of 
a  nurse,  had  now  sufficiently  recovered  to  appear  at 
Dunstan  without  medical  custody.  His  faded  aspect 
of  perfect  distinction  was  a  trifle  more  marked  than 
before  his  illness,  but  his  neckties  were  younger  by 
ten  years,  and  in  the  desk  in  his  Half-Moon  Street 
lodgings  —  the  desk  that  held  the  skeleton  in  the 
shape  of  steel-rimmed  spectacles  —  there  were  many 
samples  of  brown  tweed  —  Reggie  was  thinking  of 
leaving  off  his  mourning. 

His  method  of  gently  insinuating  into  his  welcome 
of  Mrs.  Gordon  the  hope  that  she  would  like  Dunstan 
despite  the  fact  that  its  long  period  of  unoccupation 
made  it  appear  at  a  disadvantage,  had  in  it  some- 
thing of  the  confidential  wink  of  an  obliging  auc- 
tioneer communicating  the  value  of  an  article  to  a 
connoisseur  with  whom  he  is  on  good  terms. 

"  To  my  mind  the  old  place  is  far  more  interest- 
ing as  it  is,"  he  continued  in  the  same  strain,  "  the 
Tudor  manor  intact  as  a  back  wing,  distinct  from 
that  which  is  frankly  three  centuries  later,  —  than 
if  the  more  modern  additions  were  chipped  and 
scratched  to  match  it.  Dressed  up  antiquity  was 
never  to  my  taste."  And  Mrs.  Gordon,  looking  at 
the  wilting  face  upheld  by  the  most  youthful  of 
collars,  forbore  to  make  the  retort  relevant  from 
very  pity. 

"  It  is  a  beautiful  old  room,"  she  admitted,  with 
a  finality  that  seemed  to  imply  a  long  and  familiar 
acquaintance  with  fifteenth-century  architecture. 

104 


A    DELAYED    ENTRANCE 

Captain  Usher,  of  the  White  Hussars,  was  sitting 
in  the  window-seat  with  Boadicea  Byng,  listening  to 
her  talk  about  ideals.  Usher  was  a  big  defenceless 
man,  with  a  blond  moustache  and  yellow  hair  that 
gave  him  a  downy,  newly  hatched  appearance  that 
his  huge  shoulders  and  long  legs  did  not  counteract 
to  any  extent.  He  had  been  in  India  for  six  years, 
was  a  famous  soldier,  still  a  bachelor,  and  was  as  shy 
as  a  fawn  in  the  society  of  women. 

Lady  Hamilton  thought  that  Boadicea' s  method  of 
getting  him  behind  the  curtained  window-seat  had 
almost  the  crudeness  of  a  collie  rounding  up  a  sheep; 
it  appealed  to  her  sense  of  justice,  and  she  looked 
at  the  big  yellow  man  critically,  and  wondered  if 
she  should  save  him,  but  he  was  too  homely  to 
enlist  her  sympathy,  and  she  continued  to  chatter  with 
Clyde  Forbes,  and  at  the  same  time  to  give  the 
bulk  of  her  attention  to  Lord  Alingham,  who  was 
talking  to  Mrs.  Gordon  at  the  opposite  end  of  the 
room. 

Boadicea  continued  to  talk  ideals.  She  considered 
them  a  most  womanly  subject,  and  Boadicea  was 
aggressively  womanly.  And  while  she  could  never 
have  said  anything  so  unrefined  as  that  ideals  "  pay," 
she  must  have  assured  herself  of  the  fact  in  the 
terms  of  some  elegant  equivalent.  While  her  aimless 
flutterings  toward  the  platitudinous  in  speech  and  the 
innocuous  in  conduct,  which  represented  her  con- 
ception of  the  much  abused  term,  still  went  unre- 
warded, she  persevered  in  her  course  with  pitiful 
pertinacity. 

Usher  was  not  happy.  All  that  he  knew  about 
105 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

ideals  was  that  they  could  not  be  eaten  or  shot; 
he  fired  his  guns  wildly,  not  knowing  in  the  least 
at  what  he  was  expected  to  aim. 

"  And  as  for  saying  that  one  can  never  be  happy 
till  one  has  lost  one's  ideals,"  continued  Boadicea, 
"  it 's  pessimism,  pure  pessimism." 

"  Great  mistake  to  lose  'em,"  said  Usher,  getting 
redder  and  more  uncontrollable  as  to  feet  every  mo- 
ment ;  "  ought  to  be  kept  where  a  man  can  lay  his 
hands  on  'em  in  a  minute,  like  his  rifle  or  despatch 
box." 

"  Oh,  Captain  Usher,"  said  Boadicea,  breaking  out 
into  a  mirthless  scale  of  laughter,  "  you  are  so  abso- 
lutely droll."  And  she  encouragingly  retained  a 
grimace,  indicative  of  merriment. 

Usher,  who  knew  that  he  never  made  people  laugh 
unless  he  made  a  particularly  bad  break,  looked 
helpless  and  frightened.  But  Boadicea  assured  him, 
playfully,  that  if  he  was  going  to  be  cynical  and 
witty  she  would  avoid  him  in  future,  as  she  was  afraid 
of  clever  people.  And  the  honest  soldier  believed 
that  he  had  been  unintentionally  brilliant.  Boadicea 
had  scored  a  point. 

Alice  stole  a  glance  at  Alingham,  and  finding  his 
eyes  on  her,  blushed  and  looked  away.  She  was 
talking  to  the  twins  at  the  time,  and  both  young 
ladies  observed  the  phenomenon. 

The  master  of  the  house  was  thinking  that  the 
bloom  of  centuries  was  an  ideal  quality  for  a  home 
if  there  was  a  young  face  near  by  to  prevent  one's 
thoughts  from  becoming  mouldy. 

The  cheering  influence  of  the  blazing  logs,  the 
1 06 


A   DELAYED    ENTRANCE 

rosy  lights,  the  chatter,  the  indefinable  something 
that  goes  to  make  afternoon  tea  in  England  the  most 
sociable  function  of  the  day  beguiled  every  one  into 
prolonging  the  tea  hour  till  the  dressing-bell  sounded 
for  dinner;  and  then  there  was  the  usual  mild 
consternation  over  the  flight  of  time,  letters  unwritten, 
and  all  the  rest  of  the  things  one  always  intends  to 
do  between  tea  and  dinner  in  England,  and  never 
accomplishes,  owing  to  the  beguilements  of  the  imp 
of  procrastination  that  seems  to  preside  over  that 
function. 


107 


CHAPTER   XIII 

MRS.  GORDON   STUDIES  GRAPHOLOGY  WITH 
A  PURPOSE 

IT  was  a  perfect  winter's  day,  with  just  enough 
frosty  tingle  in  the  air  to  make  the  more 
prompt  appearance  at  breakfast,  covenanted 
the  night  before  in  the  glow  of  after-dinner  enthusi- 
asm, rather  less  of  a  hardship  than  the  guests  at 
Dunstan  might  otherwise  have  found  it.  The  men 
had  arranged  to  shoot,  and  the  women  were  to  drive 
over  and  join  them  at  luncheon.  Mrs.  Gordon  was 
already  at  the  table  when  Alingham  sauntered  in, 
looking  the  typical  country  gentleman  in  his  home- 
spun Norfolk  jacket,  knickerbockers,  and  brown 
boots.  She  thought,  as  she  watched  him  go  to  the 
sideboard  and  help  himself  to  a  cut  of  cold  ham,  that 
for  the  strain  of  a  continual  breakfast-table  vis-a-vis, 
he  was  certainly  the  least  objectionable  of  his  sex. 
As  he  took  his  place  beside  her  and  glanced  at  the 
superscription  of  the  uppermost  envelope  beside  his 
plate,  she  noticed  a  faint  pallor  replace  the  ruddy 
colour  in  his  cheek,  —  he  had  that  tell-tale  English 
skin  that  is  an  unfailing  barometer  of  the  emotions. 
The  letter  in  question  had  not  been  without  interest 
to  Mrs.  Gordon,  even  before  her  host  showed  such 
evident  concern  at  sight  of  it.  The  familiarity  of  the 

1 08 


GRAPHOLOGY   WITH    A    PURPOSE 

handwriting,  together  with  the  marked  individuality 
of  its  character,  had  teased  the  flame  of  her  curiosity 
into  a  hungry  blaze.  It  was  undoubtedly  a  woman's 
hand,  and  yet  she  was  unaware  of  having  any 
common  acquaintance  with  Alingham ;  —  the  swag- 
geringly  independent  scrawl  was  as  familiar  to  her 
as  her  own,  and  still  she  could  not  place  it.  Aling- 
ham slipped  the  grey  envelope  into  his  pocket  without 
a  second  glance,  made  a  hasty  breakfast,  and  excused 
himself.  Uncle  Reggie  came  in  a  moment  later,  and 
announced  that  Alingham  had  been  called  to  town 
on  most  urgent  business,  but  hoped  to  return  that 
evening.  Mrs.  Gordon  permitted  her  brows  to  con- 
tract with  charming  distress.  The  others  showed 
similar  outward  signs  of  well-bred  bereavement. 
Apparently  she  alone  had  noticed  the  incident  of  the 
fat  grey  envelope,  —  there  had  been  no  telegram 
among  the  letters  by  his  plate.  Of  that  she  was 
positive. 

Mrs.  Gordon  was  not  only  unusually  proficient  in 
that  branch  of  social  mathematics  known  as  putting 
two  and  two  together  and  getting  four,  but  was  also 
able  to  obtain  equally  prompt  and  satisfactory  results 
from  the  addition  of  any  other  set  of  numerals  that 
might  appear  to  correspond  to  a  given  case.  But 
in  the  present  instance  she  had  only  one  factor  to 
work  with,  —  the  superscription  on  an  envelope. 
The  other  —  the  identity  of  the  writer  —  was  as 
yet  an  unknown  quantity.  While  Alingham  was 
speeding  to  town  in  a  blasphemous  humour,  and  his 
mother  lay  prone  on  her  bed  wretched  even  beyond 
the  solace  of  tea,  as  the  result  of  the  inopportune 

109 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

arrival  of  the  mysterious  missive,  Mrs.  Gordon  went 
through  her  portfolio,  carefully  scrutinising  such 
specimens  of  handwriting  as  it  contained,  in  the  hope 
of  identifying  the  insolent  curls  and  flourishes  that 
had  attracted  her  attention  during  breakfast.  But 
her  quest  went  unrewarded,  and  she  was  forced  to 
curtail  her  graphological  studies  and  drive  off  with 
the  other  women  to  meet  the  shooting-party. 

Had  not  Mrs.  Gordon,  on  the  day  of  their  arrival 
in  England,  temporarily  relaxed  her  habit  of  con- 
tinual observation  and  permitted  herself  the  luxury 
of  dreaming  as  they  rushed  through  the  peaceful  land- 
scape, she  might  now  have  had  less  difficulty  in 
determining  the  missing  factor.  Lord  Alingham's 
concern  for  Alice's  eyes  as  she  had  bent  over  the 
picture  of  the  beautiful  woman  in  the  magazine 
would  not  have  passed  unchallenged  with  the  widow. 
A  glance  at  the  pictured  face  would  have  settled  the 
identity  of  the  handwriting,  —  with  which  Mrs. 
Gordon  was  familiar,  because  at  that  time  the  writer 
of  the  grey  envelope  was  the  most  talked-of  woman 
in  Europe ;  —  an  emperor  had  tied  her  shoe ;  she 
had  made  a  laughing-stock  of  the  first  gentleman  of 
Europe  at  his  own  table;  and  the  suicides,  bank- 
ruptcies, and  other  testimonials  of  her  fascinations 
were  numberless.  Hence  her  handwriting  had  natur- 
ally become  greatly  in  demand  in  attestation  of  the 
excellence  of  numberless  commercial  products.  In- 
deed, there  was  hardly  a  soap  in  Christendom  to 
which  the  lady  had  not  attributed  the  matchless  beauty 
of  her  complexion. 

Alingham,  as  one  of  a  swarm  of  moths,  had  cheer- 
no 


GRAPHOLOGY  WITH    A    PURPOSE 

fully  burnt  his  wings  —  financial  wings  —  hovering 
near  the  candle.  Considering  the  candle's  brilliancy, 
he  was  getting  off  rather  well  with  his  bankruptcy, 
suicide  having  been  the  portion  of  many  an  excellent 
young  moth  that  had  fluttered  contemporaneously 
with  him.  But  Alingham  the  lady  was  always 
pleased  to  regard  in  the  light  of  a  weakness.  For  her 
he  had  put  himself  in  the  hands  of  the  Jews,  become 
bankrupt,  and  lost  caste  socially ;  and  yet,  with  incred- 
ible generosity,  she  was  always  willing  to  receive  him 
when  she  had  no  more  profitable  moth  to  singe.  He 
had  not  been  brushed  up  with  the  others,  for  the 
very  obvious  reason  that  his  beauty  was  a  toy  of 
which  the  lady  was  not  yet  weary.  A  penniless 
Adonis  furnished  a  welcome  variation  in  the  monoto- 
nous dynasty  of  Dives'. 

When  Alingham  had  first  known  her,  he  had  be- 
sought her,  with  all  the  eloquence  of  twenty-three, 
to  leave  the  stage  and  marry  him.  He  had  written 
her  innumerable  letters  to  this  effect,  and  the  lady 
had  had  such  a  nice  appreciation  of  the  proprieties 
that  she  had  even  consented  to  an  engagement  while 
the  process  of  reducing  one  of  the  wealthiest  young 
men  in  England  to  the  indignity  of  bankruptcy  was 
being  accomplished.  She  still  had  these  letters 
referring  to  her  as  his  betrothed.  It  was  her  gentle 
reminder  of  this  fact  that  had  brought  him  to  town. 
She  had  written  to  say  that  their  engagement  was 
not  broken,  and  if  it  were  true  that  he  was  engaged 
or  about  to  become  engaged,  she  proposed  to  sue 
him  for  breach  of  promise.  And  as  the  wretched 
man  read  and  reread  the  grey  letter  on  his  way  to 

in 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

town,  he  felt  that  the  Furies  had  indeed  caught  up 
with  him. 

At  his  lodgings  he  found  a  curt  note  written  in 
the  same  exaggerated  flourishes  that  had  arrested 
Mrs.  Gordon's  eye  that  morning,  telling  him  to  call 
that  evening  after  the  theatre.  The  knowledge  that 
she  had  been  sufficiently  sure  of  her  victim's  obedi- 
ence to  write  a  second  note  to  his  town  lodgings  did 
not  add  to  his  peace  of  mind,  as  he  bent  his  energies 
toward  killing  the  time  that  intervened  before  the 
appointed  hour. 

In  the  meantime  Mrs.  Gordon  had  arrived  at  no 
conclusion  in  regard  to  the  handwriting.  She  was 
tantalised  by  its  familiarity,  that  hung  just  beyond 
the  grasp  of  her  recognition,  leading  her  to  attempt 
varied  feats  of  ingenuity  that  brought  nothing  but 
vexation.  Was  she  jealous?  she  asked  herself  a 
dozen  times  that  morning  as  the  wheels  of  the  dog- 
cart ploughed  the  waves  and  billows  of  frozen  mud 
that  a  night  of  hard  frost  had  created.  Was  she 
jealous?  —  The  question  made  her  heart  quicken  as 
she  had  not  hoped  ever  to  feel  it  quicken  again.  - 
Was  it  pang,  or  pleasure?  or  a  blending  of  both? 
Who  was  this  woman  at  the  sight  of  whose  letter 
he  turned  pale  and  rushed  away  from  a  house  full 
of  guests  ?  What  was  her  hold  over  him  ? 

The  startled  scuttle  of  a  rabbit  through  the  brown 
bracken,  the  quick  tapping  of  a  pheasant,  became 
obtrusive  realities  in  a  world  of  such  vital  inquiries. 
The  day  was  not  going  well  with  Mrs.  Gordon. 
She  would  have  preferred  the  quiet  of  her  own 
room,  where,  properly  gowned  in  something  soft 

112 


GRAPHOLOGY    WITH    A    PURPOSE 

and  clinging,  she  could  have  flung  herself  on  the 
many-pillowed  couch  and  thought  out  the  situation 
according  to  her  own  interpretation  of  its  dramatic 
requirements.  Luncheon  with  the  shooting-party 
became  a  weariness  to  the  flesh. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   TOSSING   OF  A   COIN   DECIDES  SEVERAL 
IMPORTANT   MATTERS 

FROM  the  room  above  Alingham  could  hear 
a  plaintive  tinkling  that,  as  the  ear  grew 
accustomed  to  the  sound,  spelled  out  dis- 
tinct rhythmic  cadences  flowing  on  into  a  lamenting 
melody  that  only  an  unquiet  soul  could  bring  out  of 
silver  strings.  The  prayer  of  the  forsaken  was  in 
the  keening  cry  that  rose  and  swelled  into  ringing 
protest,  then  grew  hushed  to  the  diminuendo  of  sob- 
bing supplication.  Harmonies,  regular  as  the  beat 
of  soldiers'  feet,  followed;  laughter  and  tears  were 
in  their  rhythmic  mockery,  and  all  the  bliss  and  bit- 
terness of  living.  He  listened  as  the  children  of 
Hamelin  might  have  listened  to  the  music  of  the 
pied  piper. 

He  was  no  longer  a  failure  shrinking  under  cover 
of  darkness  to  do  the  bidding  of  a  wanton.  He  was 
in  a  land  of  poppies  and  the  sun,  where  the  minutes 
slip  to  the  twinkle  of  brown  feet,  and  the  perfumes 
of  the  East  —  the  nard  and  the  sandalwood  —  were 
in  his  nostrils. 

The  music  flowed  on  like  tears  —  to  hear  it  was  to 
listen  to  a  penitent's  confession,  and  to  listen  was  to 
absolve. 

114 


THE   TOSSING    OF   A    COIN 

Already  the  tenseness  that  is  the  forerunner  of  all 
great  emotion  had  taken  hold  of  him;  but  beneath 
the  serenity  of  his  granite  exterior  he  responded  with 
the  quickened  perception  of  supreme  experience  to 
every  incident  of  this  painful  epilogue  of  their 
story. 

He  told  himself  that  his  love  for  her  was  as  dead 
as  the  music  of  a  broken  flute;  but  he  knew  the 
memory  of  such  music  can  linger  on,  promising  to 
outlive  the  shattered  instrument  by  an  eternity.  For 
it  had  all  come  back  to  him,  —  her  sordid  acceptance 
of  his  sacrifice,  —  and  steeled  his  heart  against  the 
sham  contrition  in  her  singing. 

He  had  been  but  a  slender  stripling  of  whom  his 
world  expected  great  things  when  the  lingering  ap- 
probation of  her  eyes  drew  him  as  the  will-o'-the-wisp 
draws  travellers  to  quicksands  and  destruction  by  its 
false  light.  And  his  brief  biography  was  summed 
up  in  his  squandering  of  a  splendid  heritage  to  do 
her  lackeying.  After  the  inevitable  bankruptcy  that 
followed,  his  life  had  become  a  futile  effort  to  descend 
from  the  concert  pitch  to  which  it  had  been  tuned 
for  my  lady's  better  accompaniment,  to  the  flat  tinkle 
of  every-day  existence. 

It  was  the  presence  of  the  inscrutable  lackey,  bid- 
ding him  go  upstairs,  and  not  conveying  by  so  much 
as  the  quiver  of  an  eyelash  the  faintest  show  of  sur- 
prise or  recognition  at  his  return  after  an  absence 
of  three  months,  that  recalled  Alingham  to  his  sur- 
roundings. The  music  had  not  ceased,  not  even  for 
the  requisite  moment  in  which  to  announce  the  guest. 
For  all  its  Oriental  trickery,  it  was  her  voice  that 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

had  sent  his  soul  poppy-gathering;  yet  he  was  bid- 
den to  go  up  without  a  pause  in  her  singing.  It 
was  all  a  part.  She  had  rehearsed  it  beforehand, 
tried  it  on  some  poor  devil  and  not  found  it  wanting. 
He  smiled  grimly  —  being  in  a  humor  to  hug  suspi- 
cion —  and  assured  himself  that  it  is  a  very  primi- 
tive order  of  fool  that  is  duped  twice  by  the  same 
knave. 

He  made  his  way  to  the  room  where  she  sat  on  a 
tiger  skin  singing  her  heathen  songs  to  the  accom- 
paniment of  a  heathen  instrument.  She  barely 
glanced  up  at  his  entrance. 

How  the  association  of  every  object  smote  through 
his  senses  with  its  thrilling  message  of  joy  or  pain! 
He  was  but  an  automaton  here,  amid  the  wreck  of 
it  all,  and  the  skilled  fingers  of  association  made  his 
nerves  tingle  to  their  bidding  as  obediently  as  the 
silver-stringed  toy  rang  to  the  touch  of  the  woman 
before  him.  Was  it  in  the  power  of  mere  material 
things  to  hurt  so  much  ?  —  the  sight  of  them  was 
like  pressure  on  a  bruise. 

Here  were  the  prayer  rugs  on  which  no  prayers 
were  said,  the  divans  with  their  heaped-up  burdens  of 
rose,  cinnamon,  and  pale  gold  stuffs ;  the  carved  brass 
incense  burners  casting  wraith-like  spirals  of  per- 
fumed smoke  against  dull  blue  curtains.  Flowers 
everywhere,  massed  in  vases,  scattered  loosely  about, 
showers  of  petals  on  low  tables  holding  beaten  silver 
lamps.  They  were  all  there,  from  the  hyacinth, 
waxen  and  heavy  with  the  perfumed  sweetness 
of  a  hot-house  spring,  to  the  faintly  bitter-smelling 
chrysanthemum,  autumn's  created  emblem,  —  the 

116 


THE   TOSSING    OF    A    COIN 

florist's  promises  for  a  year  redeemed  in  a  single 
night. 

And  there  was  the  woman  herself,  queen  of  this 
pseudo-orient,  satin-skinned,  gauze-clad,  warm-tinted 
as  old  ivory,  sitting  cross-legged  on  a  tiger  skin,  sing- 
ing as  she  alone  could  sing.  To  hear  her  again  was 
to  dream  of  ecstasy  —  and  to  know  the  waking. 
Memory  lashed  and  caressed  him  in  turn,  cried  out 
to  him  pleadingly,  all  her  sorcery  in  the  cry;  but 
he  fought  it,  as  a  drowning  man  fights  engulf- 
ing waters,  and  with  outward  calmness  awaited  her 
commands. 

Apparently  she  was  in  no  hurry  to  issue  them  or 
to  conclude  her  disquieting  songs.  Being  well  versed 
in  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent,  she  knew  the  value  of 
her  music. 

For  the  swerving  of  Lord  Alingham  in  his  alle- 
giance to  the  lovely  Mrs.  Harrington  presented  a 
contingency  that  the  latter  was  not  only  unprepared 
to  face,  but  ready  to  exhaust  all  the  possibilities  of 
her  art  to  avert.  She  had  permitted  him  to  linger 
on,  when  the  frankness  of  his  poverty  was  sufficient 
proof,  she  believed,  of  the  genuineness  of  her  affec- 
tion. But,  in  truth,  the  deliberate  straying  of  a  lamb 
from  her  fold  was  an  unheard-of  occurrence,  and 
suggested  the  advent  of  a  painful  epoch  in  her  his- 
tory. Lambs  were  to  be  slaughtered  or  driven 
forth,  according  to  will,  but  permitted  to  wander  — 
never. 

In  this  instance,  therefore,  her  sovereignty  was 
at  stake,  and  Alingham  was  unconsciously  to  decide 
her  supremacy.  If  he  should  again  bend  the  knee, 

117 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

she  would  be  still  all-powerful;  if  he  should  refuse 
—  but  she  did  not  intend  that  he  should  refuse. 

Alingham  had  decided,  on  his  way  thither,  that 
he  would  hold  the  reins  of  this  interview  with  no 
uncertain  hand.  He  knew  to  a  word  how  he  would 
open  and  close  it.  And  he  intended  it  to  be  short 
and  without  sentiment.  Let  the  dead  thing  they  had 
called  their  love  be  put  in  the  grave  where  it  be- 
longed, with  no  lingering  farewells.  They  knew  its 
unloveliness  too  well  for  mawkish  manifestations. 

That  she  had  sent  for  him  because  it  was  her 
whim  further  to  humiliate  him,  Alingham  had  no 
doubt.  And  he  would  go  only  that  he  would  be  the 
better  prepared  to  defend  himself,  —  what  was  the 
use  of  fighting  in  the  dark  ?  If  she  intended  to  carry 
out  the  threat  in  her  letter,  he  wanted  to  know  it. 
And  then,  there  was  just  a  possible  chance  that  she 
might  be  in  a  reasonable  mood  and  return  his  letters. 

No  lurking  suspicion  of  weakness  suggested  to 
him  that  perhaps  other  considerations  than  those 
already  recorded  were  bringing  him  to  Mrs.  Har- 
rington's. His  faith  in  a  deliverance  from  further 
temptation,  as  is  the  case  with  any  man  who  has 
suffered  a  change  of  feminine  ideal,  was  sublime. 
And  yet,  the  tribute  levied  by  association,  the  piti- 
less claims  of  inanimate  things,  the  rack  and  tor- 
ture demanded  by  these  household  gods  of  wood  and 
stone ! 

He  had  been  waiting  for  his  chance  to  say,  with 
chilling  dignity,  "  You  have  sent  for  me !  "  -  when 
she  turned  her  head,  and  signified  she  saw  him. 
"  How  stupid  of  me  to  be  so  completely  carried 

118 


THE    TOSSING    OF   A    COIN 

away  by  my  music,"  was  charmingly  expressed  in 
the  petulant  manner  with  which  she  threw  aside  the 
lute,  lyre,  vegetable  marrow,  or  whatever  it  was 
from  which  she  was  drawing  her  devilish  music, 
and  stood  up,  tall,  fair,  regal  of  outline  as  the  Milo 
Venus  before  her  lamentable  accident.  Her  eyes  it 
was  that  gave  her  the  advantage  of  the  lady  of  the 
Louvre;  grey,  shadowy-lidded  eyes  they  were,  and 
full  of  black  angel  beauty  —  and  a  something  besides 
that  drew,  and  drew  again,  like  a  magnet,  all  passing 
glances  to  decide  whether  their  apparent  diablerie 
was  real,  or  but  the  illusion  of  thick,  curling  lashes 
and  extraordinarily  long  corners,  with  their  trick  of 
free-lance  flash,  half  challenge,  half  appeal. 

Alingham  never  got  the  chance  to  repeat  his  piti- 
ful little  preface,  "You  have  sent  for  me."  A  slender 
sandalled  foot  kicked  the  zither  out  of  her  way,  and 
she  walked  to  him,  a  queen  who  is  sure  of  her  sub- 
ject. A  queen,  perhaps,  who  is  in  a  yielding  mood, 
and  not  in  the  humour  for  state  ceremony,  but  never- 
theless a  queen.  She  threw  an  arm  with  the  texture 
of  a  rose-petal  about  his  neck,  and  drew  his  mouth 
down  to  her£  with  rough  tenderness,  —  just  a  sip 
of  madness  was  all  she  vouchsafed  him,  —  and  the 
reins  of  the  interview  that  he  meant  to  hold  with 
such  a  cool  light  hand  trailed  at  the  peril  of  his 
heels. 

He  was  conscious  only  of  her  presence;  subtly 
narcotic  as  the  fumes  of  chloroform,  it  stole  the  pur- 
pose from  his  will,  and  set  at  defiance  every  obliga- 
tion. She  listened  amazed  at  the  thick-tongued  tor- 
rent of  affection  and  protest. 

119 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

The  pitiable  eagerness  of  the  man  who  but  a  mo- 
ment before  had  regarded  her  with  the  chilling 
serenity  of  an  unsympathetic  judge  entrenched  in 
his  official  rectitude,  alternately  amused  and  disap- 
pointed her. 

The  utter  routing  of  his  reserve  by  the  merest  in- 
sinuation of  a  kiss  was  too  suggestive  of  middle- 
class  ardour  for  a  lady  in  the  humour  for  a  scene  that 
should  include  good  magazine  dialogue,  an  abun- 
dance of  dramatic  pose,  with  perhaps  a  sentimental 
finale.  She  had  appeared  in  a  brilliant  role  for  which 
apparently  there  was  no  demand.  The  challenger 
had  turned  mendicant,  and  alms-giving  was  not  to 
her  present  fancy.  He  was  like  all  the  rest  of  the 
sheep,  and  sheep  were  tiresome  toys.  She  poutingly 
assured  him  that  he  was  a  "  dear  old  idiot,"  and 
turned  away  to  examine  some  orchids. 

But  her  reading  of  him  was  at  fault.  She  dallied 
too  long  with  her  disappointment.  The  kiss  grew 
cold,  and  the  man  again  girt  himself  with  the  armour 
of  his  grievance.  Obligations  apart  from  her  favours 
obtruded  themselves,  and  when  she  decided  to  be 
amiable  just  a  moment  too  late,  he  had  himself  suf- 
ficiently in  hand  to  feel  sure  that  what  he  had  felt 
was  but  the  response  to  a  deliberately  contrived  at- 
mosphere, —  a  shrewd  playing  at  Cleopatra ;  Colling- 
wood  and  Locke  furniture  playing  at  the  Orient :  he 
knew  it  was  Collingwood  and  Locke,  for  had  he  not 
paid  the  bill.  He  had  been  over-responsive  to  the 
pantomime  —  that  was  all. 

But  he  did  not  resume  the  parliamentary  attitude 
in  which  he  had  waited  for  her  to  finish  singing. 

120 


THE    TOSSING    OF    A    COIN 

And  the  little  speeches  that  he  had  cut  with  the  nice 
exactness  of  children's  blocks  were  scattered  and 
forgotten  when  he  turned  wearily  and  waited  for 
her  lead. 

"  And  are  n't  you  glad  to  see  me,  Booty  ?  "  she 
said,  coming  over  to  the  divan  where  he  sat  and  ap- 
propriating a  cushion  at  his  feet,  all  unconscious  of 
the  momentary  miscalculation  that  had  undone  her 
plans. 

Booty  was  her  own  particular  pet  name,  and  a 
variation  of  "  Beauty,"  the  bantering  appellation  that 
his  Bertie  Cecil  type  of  good  looks  won  for  him 
from  some  of  his  men  friends. 

"  Of  course  I  'm  glad  to  see  you,  old  girl,"  he  said, 
assuming  a  tone  of  almost  aggressive  heartiness.  "  I 
hope  the  world,  the  box-office,  and  —  may  I  say  ?  — 
the  devil  are  treating  you  well." 

It  was  far  too  hearty  to  please  Blanche,  who  now 
had  made  up  her  mind  to  be  amiable,  even  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  good  magazine  dialogue. 

"  I  did  not  ask  you  here  to  talk  with  the  cheerful- 
ness of  a  greengrocer  selling  a  head  of  cabbage  — 
I  asked  you  here  because  I  wanted  to  see  you."  And 
a  faint  suggestion  of  a  sob  made  all  the  jingling 
things  about  her  throat  quiver. 

"Blanche,  dear," — the  aggressive  heartiness  grew, 
— "  you  know  we  've  quarrelled,  quarrelled  abom- 
inably, and  we  've  been  over  all  this  ground  before, 
many  times,  and  it 's  bad  medicine  for  us  both.  'Bad 
medicine  ' !  Is  n't  that  a  lovely  one  ?  An  American 
taught  it  to  me  on  the  way  over." 

The  shoulders  bearing  their  burdens  of  jewelled 
121 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

ropes  went  up  almost  to  the  ears,  then  dropped  with 
contemptuous  weariness. 

"  You  've  learned  more  than  slang  from  an  Ameri- 
can coming  over,  from  all  accounts.  What  is  she 
like?  Is  her  husband  rich  and  complacent,  and  are 
you  going  to  float  her  in  society  in  return  for  favours 
received?  " 

For  a  moment  anger  deprived  him  of  words,  — 
that  this  woman  should  dare  drag  Alice  into  this, 
enraged  him;  it  never  entered  his  head  that  she 
might  have  reference  to  Mrs.  Gordon. 

"  It 's  not  likely  I  'm  going  to  discuss  it  with  you," 
he  said  brutally. 

"  I  'm  sure  you  Ve  far  too  much  consideration. 
Confessions  are  so  monotonously  virtuous,  —  that 
is,  all  but  Jean  Jacques'." 

She  got  up  from  the  cushion  at  his  feet  and  broke 
into  a  whining  hymn-tune, — one  they  had  both  heard 
at  a  Salvationists'  meeting  where  they  had  once 
gone  to  scoff  and  remained  to  accomplish  their 
purpose. 

"  Brother  Alingham,"  she  continued,  pitching  her 
voice  to  high-keyed  eagerness,  "  will  not  give  us  his 
experience  to-night,  owing  to  his  fear  of  a  certain 
unregenerate  sister  now  present,  but  I  am  in  a  posi- 
tion to  state  that  he  who  formerly  made  a  companion 
of  play  actresses  has  now  found  the  narrow  way 
and  has  in  consequence  grown  as  dull  as  other  gen- 
tlemen making  a  similar  discovery.  To  make  a  time- 
honoured  joke,  he  is  prepared  to  settle  down  as  soon 
as  the  discovery  is  prepared  to  settle  up.  In  the  mean 
time  ladies  of  the  stage  will  please  bear  in  mind  that 

122 


THE   TOSSING    OF    A    COIN 

Hell  has  no  fury  like  a  man  reformed.  And  in  con- 
clusion the  tambourine  will  be  passed  as  usual." 

It  was  impossible  to  be  angry  with  a  woman  who 
met  his  brutality  with  such  good-natured  banter. 
Besides,  there  was  the  surviving  effect  of  the  power 
she  had  had  over  him,  an  effect  that  sharply  em- 
phasised the  zest  now  missing  from  life.  Perhaps 
it  was  an  unconscious  partaking  of  his  thought  or  the 
dreary  awakening  to  a  sense  of  loss  of  love  flung  to 
the  four  winds  and  scattered  past  gathering,  that 
made  her  say  with  something  akin  to  real  feeling: 

"  She  won't  care  half  so  much  for  you  as  I  do, 
Booty.  We  Ve  had  our  rows,  nasty  ones  too,  I  '11 
admit,  and  it  was  horrid  of  me  to  threaten  you  with 
the  suit.  Babbitt  talked  me  into  it  and  then  told 
about  it  for  the  advertisement.  Those  managers 
have  not  an  atom  of  conscience." 

"  Can't  say  I  care  about  your  way  of  showing 
affection,  Blanche.  As  a  bit  of  tenderness,  for  in- 
stance, a  breach  of  promise  suit  does  not  appeal  to 
me." 

"  You  are  worse  than  a  woman  for  raking  up  the 
past,"  she  declared  with  a  charming  pout  at  having 
the  eccentricities  of  her  affection  misunderstood. 
"  Cross  old  bear !  —  as  if  I  did  not  know  you  have 
not  a  farthing,  a  single  brass  farthing." 

"  My  poverty  was  hardly  cause  for  further  humil- 
iation —  " 

"  Dear  old  boy,  don't  be  stupid  and  dwell  on  your 
wrongs,  or  you  will  bore  me.  You  know  I  could 
have  Blount  to-morrow,  and  his  father  's  not  good 
for  a  year  —  I  Ve  that  on  the  best  of  authority.  I 

123 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

know  you  are  broke ;  but  you  see  I  'm  fond  of  you, 
Booty,  and  I  don't  give  a  sou  for  Blount." 

"  Poor  Blount,  why  don't  you  make  him  happy?  " 

"  That  is  n't  pretty  for  you  to  say,  it  really  is  n't. 
What's  the  good  of  our  squabbling?  It's  going  to 
end  in  kisses  any  way  it  turns  out.  All  our  squab- 
bling does.  You  got  in  a  nasty  temper  at  the  end 
of  the  season  because  I  'd  been  gadding  about  with 
Blount ;  you  would  n't  answer  my  letters ;  you  were 
horrid,  you  know  you  were,  Booty.  And  I  said  to 
Babbitt  one  day  in  a  fit  of  temper,  '  I  '11  sue  him ! ' 
Babbitt  was  delighted.  It  was  just  so  much  ad- 
vertising for  him,  and  he  told  that  very  night.  I 
threatened  to  break  my  contract.  I  would  n't  go 
on  the  day  I  heard  you  'd  gone  to  the  States ;  but 
you  're  back  again,  Booty  —  what  does  anything 
else  matter  ?  " 

Evidently  a  great  many  other  things  did  matter  to 
Booty,  who  was  seated  on  the  divan  with  his  head 
resting  in  his  hands.  He  was  conscious  of  a  soft 
nuzzling  at  his  arm,  as  she  made  a  resting-place  for 
her  head  on  his  knee. 

He  knew  from  experience  what  she  intended  to  do 
next,  and  he  smiled  sardonically,  as  he  saw  her  pre- 
pare to  fulfil  his  expectations.  She  slipped  her  head 
back  till  the  long,  slender,  ivory-tinted  neck  dropped 
backward  over  his  knee,  slightly  convex,  wholly  kiss- 
able  ;  and  she  gave  him  the  wealth  of  earth  from  her 
half-closed  lids.  Looking  down  on  her,  he  remem- 
bered that  once  he  had  said,  as  she  lay  thus,  with  her 
neck  thrown  backward,  —  that  she  was  like  a  violet 
whose  head  drooped  over  the  rim  of  a  bowl.  He 

124 


THE    TOSSING    OF    A    COIN 

grinned  horribly  at  the  simile.  Blanche  a  violet !  — 
as  well  sing  of  the  revels  of  pastoral  Piccadilly  at 
eventide. 

She  looked  up  and  caught  him  grinning;  he  might 
have  been  Time  the  inexorable,  whetting  his  scythe 
for  a  harvest,  so  grim  was  his  complacency.  It 
filled  her  with  chill  sickness,  and  the  beauty  that  but 
a  moment  before  had  bloomed  so  profusely  paled 
before  the  half-amused,  half-contemptuous  tolerance 
of  his  glance.  She  read  in  that  first  unsoftened  look 
the  dread  decree  that  women  have  quailed  before 
since  the  beginning:  "Give  place."  And  she  knew 
that  younger  shoulders  had  jostled  her  aside,  and 
that  the  greater  wisdom  did  not  lie  in  protest.  She 
shrank  from  testing  her  helplessness  by  a  further 
appeal;  feeling  intuitively  that  he  would  protest, 
prevaricate,  act  the  lovelorn  youth  to  save  a  scene 
—  it  was  the  unobserved  look,  in  which  she  had  de- 
tected him,  that  told  the  truth.  Unconscious  of 
everything  but  her  own  wretchedness,  she  rose  and 
walked  to  the  long  mirror  in  her  boudoir,  but 
lacked  the  courage  to  face  its  possible  revelations. 
She  raised  her  eyes  with  painful  hesitancy  at  length 
to  the  beautiful  reflection  that  smiled  back  at  her 
with  such  reassuring  consciousness  of  power.  "Not 
yet,"  the  red  lips  whispered  to  the  reflection,  and  the 
reflection  framed  the  reply  "  Not  yet."  There  were 
no  tell-tale  lines,  no  sunken  hollows  to  mark  the 
feeding-ground  of  fretfulness  and  care.  "  Not  yet," 
she  said,  turning  with  a  revival  of  exaltation,  a  sense 
of  carrying  everything  before  her,  and  swept  back  to 
Alingham  like  an  accusing  goddess. 

125 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

"  Booty,  what  made  you  look  at  me  as  if  I  were 
a  hag?  —  I  saw  you  —  don't  deny  it.  I  flew  to  the 
glass  expecting  to  find  crow's  feet  and  a  bald  spot." 
The  unavailing  search  for  the  bald  spot  seemed  to 
have  loosened  the  coil  of  brown  hair  that  held  in 
its  heavy  strands  the  reddish  lights  of  polished 
mahogany. 

Alingham  hoped  desperately  that  she  was  not 
going  to  let  it  fall,  which  she  did  with  beautifully 
contrived  deliberation. 

"  It 's  lovely,  Blanche  —  but  why  don't  you  get 
some  hairpins  ?  " 

"  I  must  get  a  beau  who  has  the  price  of  a  package 
—  I  'm  so  unworldly,"  she  answered,  twisting  it  up 
with  exquisite  deftness.  His  manner  filled  her  with 
haunting  doubts.  Had  he  lied  to  save  a  scene;  had 
the  mirror  lied  because  her  eyes  would  not  see  the 
truth?  She  had  known  women,  old,  decrepit,  plas- 
tered with  falseness  from  head  to  heels,  take  joy  in 
the  contemplation  of  their  hideous  faces.  Had  it 
come,  the  first  blast  of  withering  winter?  His  in- 
difference made  her  desperate.  She  had  no  further 
interest  in  him  as  a  toy.  She  hated  him.  He  had 
shown  her  that  her  power  was  waning.  And  if  over 
him,  over  them  all;  they  were  but  so  many  sheep, 
with  a  sheep's  ways.  If  he  strayed  off,  others  would 
follow.  It  was  the  history  of  woman  brought  home 
to  her.  Oh,  to  make  him  sweat  out  the  price  of  this 
in  coin  of  equal  value! 

"  I  was  just  thinking,"  she  said,  "  that  the  stage 
quite  spoils  the  domestic  side  of  a  woman  —  did  you 

126 


THE    TOSSING    OF   A    COIN 

notice  how  dramatic  I  was  a  moment  ago  ?  That 's 
what  I  call  playing  shop  after  hours." 

"  But  then  you  did  it  so  well,  it  was  quite  a  treat," 
he  said,  welcoming  her  change  of  mood. 

"  We  were  talking  of  the  wisdom  of  going  our 
several  ways  when  I  interrupted  you  to  look  in  the 
glass.  You  may  continue  —  but  I  don't  want  any 
County  Council,  or  '  Best  for  you  and  best  for  me ' 
in  it." 

"  Since  you  put  it  that  way,  there  is  really  nothing 
for  me  to  say  but  good-bye." 

"  We  are  growing  respectable  in  our  old  age  and 
poverty,  like  the  awful  examples  the  Salvationists 
bring  up  for  exhibits.  Are  you  going  to  be  an  ex- 
hibit, Booty  ?  —  a  matrimonial  exhibit,  with  a  rich, 
ugly  wife  who  will  tell  everyone  —  through  her  nose 

—  how  she  converted  you  ?  " 

He  did  not  answer,  and  his  silence  irritated  her 
more  than  any  words  could  have  done. 

"  Why  don't  you  answer  me  ?  Why  don't  you 
open  your  mouth  and  say  something,  and  not  stand 
there  like  a  blooming  supe,  — '  a  friend,  Roman  or 
countryman,'  —  in  a  tin  hat,  at  a  bob  a  night." 

"  Because  I  have  about  the  same  income,  I  sup- 
pose. Blanche  dear,  we  have  been  happy,  let  us  part 
as  comrades  should." 

"  So  you  can  go  off  comrading  with  the  other 
lady? — I  think  Babbitt  was  right.  I  'm  going  to  sue, 

—  but  out  of  consideration  for  your  distressed  cir- 
cumstances, I  will  make  the  damages  one  farthing." 

"  Is  that  the  estimate  of  the  damage  I  have  done 
your  affection  ?  " 

127 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

"  I  'm  putting  a  good  round  sum  on  it,  dearest ; 
London  will  die  of  laughing." 

He  knew  she  had  been  crouching  for  a  spring,  but 
he  had  ceased  to  expect  it  from  this  quarter.  Money 
he  had  none  to  offer;  to  degrade  himself  further 
by  pleading  was  impossible.  There  was  but  one  way 
out  of  it,  and  this  was  not  the  time  or  place  to  think 
out  the  details. 

"  I  don't  think  much  of  your  method,  Blanche ; 
you  know  it 's  been  done  before.  You  ought  to 
have  thought  out  something  more  original." 

"  But  your  letters  will  add  the  originality,  and  the 
poetry  —  you  remember  the  poetry  —  that  '11  add  the 
fun."  She  clapped  her  hands  and  laughed  delight- 
fully. "  I  really  owe  something  to  the  public,  Booty. 
It 's  been  so  awfully  good  to  me,  and  I  intend  to  keep 
it  in  a  good  humour." 

She  might  have  been  discussing  a  bit  of  stage 
business,  referring  the  wisdom  of  some  little  by-play 
to  an  indulgent  manager,  so  appealingly  ingenuous 
was  she.  There  was  not  an  apparent  trace  of  malice 
about  her  fiendish,  deliberate  cruelty  which  disgusted 
Alingham  to  the  point  of  reckoning  his  release  cheap 
at  any  price. 

"  And  do  you  already  find  your  art  inadequate  to 
repay  the  indulgence  of  your  audience?  Sensation, 
as  you  are  aware,  is  the  acknowledged  refuge  of 
mediocrity." 

"  My  dear  Booty,"  she  said  with  charming  good 
humour,  "  your  little  platitude  reminds  me  of  the  mis- 
sionary who,  when  asked  by  the  cannibal  if  there 
was  anything  he  would  care  to  say  before  finally 

128 


THE   TOSSING   OF   A    COIN 

stepping  into  the  soup  pot,  remarked  that  he  would 
like  to  preach  one  more  sermon  on  the  advantage 
of  vegetable  diet." 

He  smiled.  "  It  is  useless  to  warn  so  conscien- 
tious an  artist  of  the  danger  of  burning  the  candle 
at  both  ends.  Good-night."  He  bowed  as  cere- 
moniously as  if  she  had  been  the  traditional  princess, 
and  left  the  room. 

She  stared  stupidly  at  the  place  where  he  had 
stood  but  a  moment  before,  then  listened  eagerly 
as  his  footsteps  grew  fainter  on  the  stair,  and  threw 
herself  on  a  divan  in  utter  bewilderment.  She  con- 
sidered tears,  —  but  there  was  no  one  to  cry  to. 
What  manner  of  man  was  this  who  upset  all  her 
calculations  of  men  ?  She  began  to  doubt  her  knowl- 
edge of  his  sex,  —  as  humiliating  an  admission  of 
weakness  as  woman  is  capable  of.  She  would  have 
understood  if  he  had  coaxed  or  tried  to  cajole  her 
into  a  relinquishment  of  her  outrageous  claim  — 
and  outrageous  she  knew  it  to  be  —  with  promises 
of  a  share  in  the  brilliant  prospects  that  awaited  him. 
That,  she  felt,  was  the  language  of  his  kind.  Or  if 
his  indignation  had  found  expression  through  the 
medium  of  blows  or  physical  violence,  —  that,  she 
knew,  would  have  been  the  language  of  another 
kind.  But  this  reserve,  the  self-contained  speech, 
the  most  deferential  "  Good-night,"  —  what  did  it 
mean?  Blanche  was  typical  of  the  class  which  re- 
spects that  which  it  cannot  understand,  and  through 
all  the  whirling  why  and  wherefore  there  loomed  the 
mystery  of  his  behaviour,  at  which  she  could  only 
look  and  wonder. 

9  I29 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

She  began  to  think  of  him  regretfully.  He  was 
a  thoroughbred,  if  he  was  broke.  He  knew  how  to 
go  down  splendidly,  without  a  danger  signal.  Poor 
devil !  Poor  Booty !  He  had  been  so  generous,  and 
he  never  once  cast  up  how  much  he  had  spent  on 
her  —  or  that  she  had  broke  him  —  grit  and  good 
breeding  were  hard  to  beat.  These  reflections  finally 
landed  her  at  the  foot  of  the  staircase.  She  reached 
the  hall  door  just  as  his  hand  was  turning  the  knob. 

"  Booty,  come  back !  —  not  to  make  up,  not  to 
quarrel,  but  to  get  justice ! "  She  finished  the  sen- 
tence with  a  mock-melodramatic  gesture.  "  There 
now,  that  was  worthy  of  the  Adelphi,  was  n't  it  ? 
Who  says  I  'm  not  versatile  ?  Booty,  I  liked  your 
exit.  It  was  fine.  No  playing  to  galleries.  It  was 
thoroughbred,  and  I  'm  proud  of  you.  I  mean  to 
give  you  another  chance.  Listen,  we  '11  toss  for  this 
thing,  and  if  you  win,  I  '11  burn  your  letters  and  it 's 
done  for,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned." 

"What's  the  use?" 

"  Much.  I  'm  not  going  to  put  a  premium  on  de- 
sertion by  burning  your  letters  and  helping  to  sing 
'  The  Voice  that  Breathed  o'er  Eden '  —  over  you 
and  the  other  lady;  but  I  am  willing  to  give  you  a 
chance,  old  man,  just  for  the  sport  of  the  thing,  and 
because  I  like  your  grit.  I  suppose  I  can  be  generous, 
can't  I?" 

"  I  '11  not  avail  myself  of  it,  Blanche,  thank  you." 

"  Now  don't  be  sulky  and  stupid.  You  've  thrown 
me  over  and  I  hate  you  for  it,  because,  you  see,  it 
makes  me  lose  faith  in  myself,  and  when  a  woman 
begins  to  do  that,  there's  nothing  left  but  religion 

130 


THE   TOSSING   OF   A    COIN 

and  knitting.  But  you  did  it  well,  you  threw  me  over 
and  took  your  medicine  like  a  thoroughbred,  and  I  'm 
willing  to  be  generous,  to  give  you  another  chance. 
We  '11  toss  for  it.  You  '11  have  to  make  two  out  of 
three.  Come  on,  it  '11  be  jolly  good  fun." 

"  I  don't  feel  like  gambling.  You  've  given  your 
ultimatum,  let  it  stand." 

"  As  you  like.  But  if  you  throw  away  your  last 
chance,  don't  blame  me.  As  I  said  before,  I  'm  not 
going  to  put  a  premium  on  my  own  jilting.  I  feel  it 
would  be  unlucky.  But  I  '11  take  chances  with  you." 

She  unfastened  a  purse,  fashioned  out  of  tiny  gold 
links,  that  hung  at  her  waist,  and  first  emptying  its 
contents  into  one  rosy  palm,  poured  half  of  it  into 
the  other,  and,  holding  her  hands  high  above  her 
head,  clinked  the  coin  like  castanets.  She  might 
have  been  the  goddess  of  fortune,  with  that  smile  of 
insolent  indifference  parting  her  lips,  and  the  coin 
clinking  an  accompaniment  to  the  song  she  hummed. 
It  was :  "  They  're  hanging  Danny  Deever  in  the 
Morning." 

A  clock  struck  one  somewhere  in  the  house,  and 
the  sound  recalled  the  wandering  wits  of  the  man  of 
whom  she  had  made  a  pauper.  What  should  he  do? 
Here  was  a  woman  with  the  instincts  of  the  gutter, 
who  was  going  to  sue  him  for  a  farthing,  for  the 
purpose  of  amusing  London;  she  would  do  it  with- 
out passion,  in  no  ecstasy  of  hate,  but  purely  for  the 
commercial  reason  that  it  would  advertise  her.  And 
now  some  gambler's  impulse  had  prompted  her  to 
call  him  back  and  offer  to  toss  a  coin  with  him, 
whether  she  should  drag  his  name  through  the 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

muck  of  a  breach  of  promise  suit,  or  burn  his  letters, 
—  could  the  draught  of  degradation  hold  bitterer 
dregs  ? 

As  far  as  personal  inclination  went,  he  would  never 
submit  to  such  a  condition.  Five  minutes  in  his  lodg- 
ings would  settle  the  question,  and  put  him  beyond 
the  reach  of  this  woman's  malice.  Neither  would  the 
thought  of  Alice  have  altered  his  resolution.  She 
was  the  reward  that  comes  just  once  in  a  man's  life; 
the  perfect  recompense  for  the  dreariness  of  days 
long  drawn  out.  He  had  not  been  worthy.  Yet  he 
was  thankful  to  know  that  such  as  she  lived.  She 
was  worthy  of  a  Sir  Galahad.  Ah,  well,  perhaps  the 
gods  would  provide  one.  At  least  she  took  the  tang 
off  many  a  frail  sister.  Even  this  woman  was  robbed 
of  some  of  her  brazenness  because  she  was  of  her 
kind. 

"  *  What  makes  you   look  so  white,   so   white  ? '   said  Files-on 

Parade. 

4 1  'm  dreadin'  what  I  Ve  got  to  watch,'  the  Colour  Sergeant 
said." 

She  clinked  her  coins  in  perfect  accompaniment 
to  the  minor  in  which  she  sang. 

Alingham  listened,  as  one  who  hears  the  death 
penalty  meted  out  to  another.  He  was  thinking 
of  his  mother  and  the  girls,  with  all  their  pitiful 
plans  and  plottings,  —  dependent  on  him.  What 
could  become  of  these  helpless  women?  The  entail 
would  revert  to  a  cousin.  There  was  barely  a  shil- 
ling left  among  them.  He  saw  them  huddled  to- 
gether, helpless,  desperate,  defeated.  His  mother 

132 


THE   TOSSING   OF   A    COIN 

wailing  her  tragedy  in  some  triviality,  as  usual;  the 
girls  bravely  turning  their  pitiful  little  accomplish- 
ments over,  in  the  hope  that  they  might  suggest 
some  monetary  solution.  It  was  late  in  the  day  for 
these  reflections,  he  was  dismally  aware. 

"  Sir,"  said  Blanche,  "  I  do  not  propose  to  stand 
in  the  hall  all  night  awaiting  your  Lordship's  deci- 
sion; bankrupts,  you  know,  should  not  be  choosers, 
—  or  is  it  beggars  ?  " 

"  I  can  answer,  in  either  case,"  he  said,  bowing. 
"  I  am  quite  ready  to  toss  when  you  are."  She  led 
the  way  upstairs.  Again  they  stood  in  the  familiar 
room.  Blanche  motioned  him  to  draw  up  a  table, 
at  which  she  took  her  place.  He  seated  himself  op- 
posite. She  looked  over  the  heap  of  coin  in  her  hand 
and  selected  a  sovereign. 

Alingham  no  longer  had  any  interest  in  the  pro- 
ceeding. His  head  felt  light  and  swimming;  it  was 
not  he  who  was  about  to  play,  it  was  a  hunted  wretch 
with  the  world  against  him,  and  he,  Alingham,  was  to 
look  on  at  the  sport  while  this  Harpy  made  a  game 
of  his  desperation.  He  saw  as  through  a  fog  that 
she  was  shaking  the  coin  in  her  clasped  palms  for  the 
first  toss,  and  he  heard  a  far-off  voice  say,  "  Heads 
you  win ;  "  then  the  slap  of  the  fleshy  palm  on  the 
table,  and  the  — 

"  You  've  won  the  first,  Booty.  See,  you  '11  get 
it;  respectability  has  marked  you  for  her  own." 

The  voice  babbled  on. 

"  Would  you  like  something  to  drink  ?  A  B-and-S  ? 
No  ?  A  liqueur,  then  ?  Good  gracious,  but  you  have 
gone  to  the  good.  Well,  here  goes  the  second." 

133 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

Again  the  flutter  of  the  white  hands,  again  the 
thud  of  the  thick-palmed  hand,  a  sharp  drawing-in 
of  the  breath  through  clenched  teeth. 

"  Ah,  little  me,  this  time,  —  they  '11  teach  you  to 
throw  me  over.  —  This  is  n't  bad,  you  know,  Booty. 
As  a  bit  of  sport,  I  've  not  been  so  entertained  since 
Derby  Day.  —  I  wish  you  'd  drink  something,  this 
is  devilish  dry  work.  —  No,  I  don't  want  you  to  ring 
for  me,  if  you  won't  have  anything  yourself.  Well, 
here  goes  the  final  trial." 

Alingham  felt  he  was  going  to  lose. 

He  saw  the  white  hands  beat  the  air  as  a  bird  beats 
the  bars  of  its  prison,  —  down  slapped  the  coin. 

"  Which  of  us?  "  said  the  voice  of  his  tormentor. 
Her  nostrils  were  white,  and  her  breathing  was 
laboured. 

"  My  God,  Booty,  think  of  this,  and  for  you  and 
me." 

She  kept  her  hand  over  the  coin.  She  looked  up 
at  him.  Her  eyes  were  full  of  tears.  She  lifted  up 
her  hand.  It  was  heads  —  he  had  won ! 

The  tears  splashed  down  her  cheeks,  the  mouth 
quivered  pitifully :  "  I  suppose  it 's  all  for  the  best, 
old  man ; "  and  she  ran  out  of  the  room. 

He  felt  as  if  his  nerves  were  dancing  witches' 
dances.  His  hand  shook,  his  head  throbbed  wildly. 
It  was  a  good  omen.  Fortune,  the  fickle  jade, 
meant  to  give  him  another  chance.  It  meant  an- 
other start.  It  was  like  the  tearing  away  by  a  skilled 
hand  of  some  terrible  blight  that  had  overgrown  his 
brain. 

It  wanted  but  this  particular  turn  of  events  to  con- 
134 


THE    TOSSING    OF    A    COIN 

vince  Blanche  that  she  had  loved  Alingham  always, 
and  could  never  love  anyone  else.  And  for  the  time 
being,  the  compunction  of  contrariety  consumed  her 
with  the  bitterness  of  a  real  sorrow.  The  tears  she 
forced  back  were  more  real  than  any  she  had  ever 
shed.  The  smiling  indifference  of  the  proud  loser 
was  too  close  to  real  grief  to  be  well  played. 

Her  pride  was  wounded  to  the  quick.  He  wanted 
to  go,  —  he,  the  tame  cat  who  had  blinked  content- 
edly on  the  hearth  rug  for  so  long,  taking  the  kicks 
with  equanimity,  and  purring  up  thanks  for  the  pats 
received.  Men  had  no  gratitude,  sighed  the  lady 
on  whom  he  had  wasted  his  heritage.  Oh,  the  agony 
of  it!  He  was  going  to  someone  else  who  would 
adopt  him  legally,  and  give  him  a  beautiful  silver 
collar,  or  indeed,  maybe,  one  of  gold. 

Cleopatra,  struggling  between  her  tears  and  a  dog- 
in-the-manger  instinct  for  the  cat,  went  to  her  desk, 
and  taking  out  the  packet  of  letters,  burned  it  before 
him. 

He  mewed  a  "  God  bless  you,"  they  looked  at  each 
other  with  something  like  affection  in  their  eyes,  and 
for  the  last  time  he  crossed  the  threshold  of  the  house 
in  St.  John's  Wood. 


135 


CHAPTER   XV 

LOVE   STRAINS   AT  THE    LEASH    OF    PRUDENCE 

ALINGHAM  did  not  return  to  Dunstan  till 
two  days  later.  He  felt  that  his  jangled 
nerves  required  a  respite  from  the  corrosive 
presence  of  Mrs.  Gordon;  and  that,  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, it  would  not  be  prudent  to  risk  a  clash 
of  their  antagonistic  temperaments  while  his  nerves 
had  the  reins. 

Solitude  in  London  assumed  hideous  proportions. 
It  became  a  thing  to  flee  from;  and  he  fled  accord- 
ingly to  a  certain  small  and  much  restricted  club 
where  it  was  possible  to  fling  temptation  indiscrimi- 
nately in  the  way  of  one's  good  or  evil  genius,  and 
forget  the  burning  issue  of  the  hour  in  watching 
the  two  fight  it  out  on  a  green  cloth  table. 

He  had  little  to  throw,  and  what  he  had  was  not 
his  own,  but  such  trifles  have  never  yet  disturbed 
the  poise  of  the  born  gambler,  whose  motto  is,  and 
always  will  be :  Throw  coin  and  consequence  to  the 
winds,  but  never  lose  a  chance.  On  this  occasion 
good  luck  seemed  to  have  made  a  crony  of  him, 
withdrawing  the  cold  shoulder  that  of  late  years  had 
greeted  his  attempts  at  familiarity.  He  played  and 
won,  and  played  and  won  again,  then  risked  every- 
thing and  won,  and  continued  to  risk  everything 

136 


LOVE   STRAINS   AT   THE    LEASH 

and  win  till  he  broke  the  bank  for  the  sum  of  two 
thousand  pounds. 

The  sum  was  not  particularly  large,  the  game  was 
not  so  high  as  some  he  had  lost,  at  that  very  table; 
yet,  in  his  present  condition,  it  seemed  that  for  him 
the  miracle  had  been  wrought ;  that  in  his  behalf  the 
maxims  of  ink-stained  childhood  regarding  reaping 
and  sowing,  gathering  and  scattering,  work  and  play, 
had  been  inverted.  The  Fates  had  decreed  that  he 
should  walk  through  bitter  waters,  and  eat  the  husks 
of  the  prodigal  only  that  his  experience  might  be 
wide;  for  great  things  were  presently  in  store  for 
Alingham  of  Dunstan,  and  it  was  but  seemly  that 
he  should  meet  them  with  wide  experience  to  his 
credit. 

Every  prosperity  was  possible  to  the  spendthrift 
with  a  check  for  two  thousand  pounds  in  his  purse; 
he  dropped  into  a  carriage  at  Victoria  Station,  with 
the  helpless  sensation  of  the  stupidly  rich,  the  check 
conferring  at  least  temporary  boredom. 

So  engrossing  had  been  Lord  Alingham's  London 
experiences  that  after  wiring  to  Dunstan  regrets  at 
his  unavoidable  detention  in  town  for  a  few  days,  he 
was  glad  to  dismiss  the  house-party  entirely  from 
his  consciousness,  and  forget  in  the  tension  incident 
to  such  stimulating  events  as  awaited  him,  the  com- 
plications he  had  left  behind.  So  admirably  did  he 
succeed  that  not  till  the  train  began  to  slow  down 
at  Drillford  did  he  remember  his  omission  to  wire 
the  house  of  his  arrival,  and  that,  in  all  probability, 
there  would  be  no  one  at  the  station  to  meet  him. 

The  truth  of  this  dismal  surmise  was  forced  on 
137 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

him  by  a  species  of  grotesque  pantomime  on  the 
part  of  the  venerable  village  fly  whose  agitated  cir- 
clings  in  his  vicinity  indicated  a  consciousness  of  his 
predicament.  But  Alingham  would  have  none  of  its 
squalid  agility;  not  having  outgrown  the  propensity 
to  sulk,  he  took  a  real  infantile  pleasure  in  heaping 
further  discomforts  on  himself  in  the  hope  of  thwart- 
ing the  perpetration  of  real  or  fancied  injuries.  Walk- 
ing would  the  better  preserve  his  pique,  and  when  he 
should  present  himself  a  subdued  and  travel-stained 
martyr,  his  family  would  thereby  be  brought  to  a 
more  perfect  realisation  of  its  selfishness  in  not  hav- 
ing sent  the  carriage  on  chance.  The  bright  side  of 
bankruptcy  and  impending  ruin  that  had  been  re- 
vealed to  him  by  the  cheering  blaze  of  his  letters  to 
Mrs.  Harrington  was  momentarily  overcast  by  the 
humiliation  to  which  he  had  been  submitted  before 
the  leaven  of  his  humour  asserted  itself.  And  he 
smiled  boyishly  at  the  thought  that  a  three-mile 
walk  could  be  taken  seriously  by  a  young  giant 
who  amused  himself  daily  with  all  manner  of  titanic 
pastimes. 

On  either  side  of  the  high-road  that  wandered 
through  the  village  and  stretched  away,  a  narrow- 
ing grey  thread,  through  the  winter  landscape,  were 
small  cottages  standing  undetermined  on  the  bedrag- 
gled outskirts  of  Drillford,  as  if  the  question  of 
pushing  on  to  a  more  metropolitan  environment  or 
lingering  in  the  peaceful  atmosphere  of  rusticity  were 
too  complicated  for  immediate  decision.  Many  a 
fringed  head  expectantly  bobbing  at  cottage  win- 
dows that  melancholy  November  morning  in  hope 

138 


LOVE    STRAINS   AT   THE    LEASH 

of  possible  happenings  was  thrust  out  farther  as 
Alingham  of  Dunstan  was  recognised  in  the  solitary 
pedestrian  swinging  along  in  soldierly  fashion.  And 
many  a  recurrent  blush  bore  witness  to  the  charm 
of  his  Lordship's  salutation  long  after  he  had  gone 
his  way  and  forgotten  the  fringed  heads  now  fur- 
nished with  the  absorbing  topic  of  his  advent.  For 
Alingham  always  excited  more  than  his  share  of 
feminine  flutterings, — a  circumstance  which  had  not 
served  to  increase  his  popularity  with  men  of  his 
own,  or  even  of  the  nether  class  that  tipped  its  hats 
to  him  while  complaining  of  his  bad  management 
as  a  landlord. 

The  cottages  gave  place  to  market  gardens  which, 
in  turn,  were  succeeded  by  the  more  depressing  splen- 
dours of  a  suburban  villa  neighbourhood  with  its 
dismal  accompaniment  of  infinitesimal  gardens,  and 
metal  lions  to  guard  the  prosperity  that  had  come  to 
Drillford  with  the  opening  of  the  woollen  mills,  —  a 
prosperity  that  the  bankrupt  young  squire  resented 
as  fiercely  as  a  personal  affront. 

A  series  of  cuts  and  by-paths,  familiar  to  him  from 
earliest  boyhood,  led  him  from  sights  and  sounds  of 
the  clustering  villas  through  winding  muddy  lanes  to 
his  own  demesne.  Almost  as  sharply  definite  as  arti- 
ficial boundary  could  have  made  it,  was  the  differ- 
ence between  the  Dunstan  acres  and  the  adjoining 
farm  lands.  The  creeping  paralysis  of  neglect  was 
apparent  in  everything  that  was  Alingham's,  in  the 
dragging  gates,  the  reeling  fences,  the  bleak  and  mel- 
ancholy stretches  of  land  that  revealed,  even  in  the 
frost-bound  desolation  of  winter,  that  no  recent  at- 

139 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

tempt  at  cultivation  had  been  made.  He  turned 
impatiently  from  the  accusing  reminders  of  his  bad 
stewardship,  to  a  bend  in  the  road  from  which  he 
could  see  the  long  black  lines  of  weather-beaten  trees 
that  marked  the  boundary  of  his  park.  More  reas- 
suring were  these  towering  sentinels  of  the  ages,  — 
splendid  witnesses  of  the  enduring  qualities  of  his 
race.  He  could  never  see  them  without  a  restoration 
of  courage,  a  quickening  of  family  pride  that  almost 
imparted  to  present  straits  the  excitement  of  a  game 
of  chance.  And  was  there  not  the  consciousness  of 
a  change  of  luck,  —  most  significant  of  assurances 
to  the  born  gambler,  —  the  folded  check  in  his  purse, 
the  knowledge  of  important  if  inglorious  victory  in 
accusing  documents  burned  to  ashes? 

Blanche  was  a  good  sort,  after  all,  but  too  in- 
cessantly dramatic  for  every-day  life.  Who  but 
Blanche  would  have  got  up  an  Arabian-night  show 
for  such  a  finale  ?  And  the  coin-tossing  —  could  any- 
thing have  been  more  ridiculously  theatrical?  Had 
she  thought  it  all  out  before?  That  was  the  trouble 
with  stage  women;  they  would  insist  on  bringing 
home  the  lime-light  and  the  make-up.  But  what 
eyes  she  had!  He  could  hardly  have  told  whether 
the  sigh  he  drew  was  of  relief  or  regret  at  the  final 
parting.  She  absorbed  a  man,  wiped  him  out  like  a 
bad  drawing,  did  him  over  her  own  way,  —  left  him 
a  mannikin  marked  with  a  cipher,  the  iron  she  kept 
for  branding  her  pet  sheep. 

The  glitter  of  her  personality  would  dazzle  any 
boy,  but  there  was  an  overawing  majesty  in  her  all 
but  absolute  loveliness  too  exacting  for  the  more 

140 


LOVE    STRAINS    AT   THE    LEASH 

sufficient  man  of  the  world.  She  was  a  glorious 
creature  to  have  kept  her  beauty  so  miserly.  Why, 
Blanche  must  be  —  and  the  calculation  ended  in  a 
smile  that  had  in  it  something  of  a  wink  at  that 
newly  emancipated  Alingham  whose  letters  were 
burnt  and  who,  for  the  first  time,  could  do  mental 
arithmetic  regarding  the  long  reign  of  his  quondam 
divinity.  The  Blanche  Harringtons  were  well  enough 
for  callow  youth  and  capering  age,  but  the  tantalis- 
ing emptiness  of  such  splendid  stage  banquets  did 
not  commend  itself  to  the  reverential  grace  of  com- 
pleter  years.  He  threw  his  head  back  as  he  walked 
and  turned  his  face  to  the  drizzling  rain,  —  the  move- 
ment was  that  of  a  neck  released  from  a  yoke. 

"Poor  old  Reggie,  poor  old  boy!"  Alingham's 
pity  was  not  elicited  by  the  discomforts  of  his  elderly 
relative,  dragged  from  the  solace  of  his  gruel  bowls, 
his  medical  man,  the  almost  nursery  wholesomeness 
of  his  Half  Moon  Street  existence  to  the  makeshifts 
of  poverty-racked  Dunstan ;  but  by  the  remembrance 
of  Uncle  Reggie's  sinister  aphorism :  "  None  but  the 
infirm  deserve  the  ingenue."  Such  philosophy  could 
not  turn  the  scale  a  feather's  weight  against  youth 
and  the  knowledge  that  there  lived  a  certain  freckle- 
faced  girl  who  could  blush,  and  who  had  no  convic- 
tions about  life  but  that  bread  and  butter  were  good 
and  bread  and  jam  better. 

The  Queen  is  dead,  long  live  the  Queen!  Her 
present  majesty  is  young,  all  her  history  is  a  white 
page  on  which  the  Fates  have  purposely  refrained 
from  scribbling;  there  was  joy  and  perturbation  in 
the  thought. 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

Heretofore  Alingham  had  taken  his  clay  as  he 
had  found  it  moulded,  —  other  hands  had  wrought 
the  frail  vessels  that  had  invoked  his  young  raptures. 
But  this  first  gift  of  yielding  substance,  his  to  make 
or  mar,  —  was  he  worthy  ?  Who  was  ?  Should  the 
potter  be  required  to  render  account  of  that  which 
he  had  broken  on  the  wheel? 

She  was  gathering  acorns  in  the  skirt  of  her  frock, 
and  when  she  saw  him,  skirt  and  acorns  fell  simul- 
taneously, —  but  whether  through  agitation  at  see- 
ing him,  or  maidenly  modesty  at  being  surprised  in 
a  petticoat,  perhaps  even  she  could  not  tell.  She  came 
toward  him  illumined  with  a  swift  sudden  joy  she 
had  no  art  to  conceal,  —  her  radiance  took  the  sullen- 
ness  from  the  day. 

"  I  felt  you  were  going  to  come,  but  I  did  not  think 
it  would  be  so  soon,"  she  said  with  that  prehistoric 
simplicity  that  to  Alingham  was  her  chief  charm. 

"  Do  you  want  these  things  ?  "  —  indicating  the 
fallen  acorns  with  the  toe  of  his  boot. 

"  I  have  no  further  use  for  them  if  you  are  going 
to  stay." 

"  I  shall  be  honoured  indeed  if  you  will  accept  me 
as  a  substitute  for  a  lapful  of  acorns  —  but  what 
were  you  doing  with  them?  —  and  why  do  you  al- 
ways play  out  in  the  rain  ?  —  so  you  will  grow  up 
soon?  Don't,  Alice,  the  world  is  full  of  grown-up 
young  ladies  in  long  frocks;  and  one  in  a  scarlet 
Red  Riding  Hood  ungrown  is  too  delightful  an  in- 
novation to  go  the  way  of  all  the  rest.  Don't  play 
in  the  rain  after  to-day;  and  tell  me  why  you  were 
gathering  acorns." 

142 


LOVE   STRAINS    AT   THE    LEASH 

"  It  was  a  game." 

"A  game  of  solitaire?" 

"  It  was  n't  going  to  be  solitaire  right  straight 
through." 

"  Was  someone  going  to  turn  up  at  the  end?  " 

"  Someone  did." 

"  The  right  someone  ?  " 

"  He  will  answer,  if  he  behaves  well." 

Hopefully :   "  It  is  n't  a  game  of  forfeits,  is  it  ?  " 

Indignantly :  "  No,  it  is  n't.  Do  you  think  I  'd 
make  up  a  game  like  that?  " 

Apologetically :  "  Someone  had  to  make  it  up  in 
the  beginning." 

As  Doctor  Watts  says :  "  For  Satan  finds  some 
mischief  still  for  idle  hands  to  do ! " 

"  To  return  to  the  game  —  you  pick  up  stones, 
acorns,  or  anything  else  that  happens  to  be 
plentiful  —  " 

"You  don't  — oh,  you  don't." 

" — And  when  you  get  the  right  number  your  wish 
comes  true.  A  young  lady  told  me  all  about  it  one 
day  aboard  the  '  Calabria/  adding  that  she  had  in- 
vented it  herself  far  away  iij  her  prairie  home.  —  I 
say,  you  were  a  regular  little  brick  to  wish  for  me, 
Alice." 

"What!" 

"  I  did  n't  mean  you  wished  for  me  to  come.  I 
mean  you  turned  your  trial  over  to  me.  I  've  been 
wishing  to  see  you  for  over  a  week." 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  I  only  wished  for  myself,  but 
that  was  wishing  for  both  of  us.  I  played  I  was  in 
an  enchanted  forest,  and  that  a  witch  guarded  me 

143 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

day  and  night,  and  one  day  my  fairy  godmother 
came  to  me  and  told  me  to  gather  acorns,  and  if  I 
could  gather  a  thousand  before  sunset,  a  beautiful 
prince  would  come  and  release  me.  He  came  at 
the  one  hundred  and  twenty-seventh.  Was  n't  he 
prompt  for  a  prince  ?  " 

"  Not  considering  what  was  awaiting  him  —  and 
he  took  her  away  and  they  were  happy  for  ever 
afterward,"  concluded  his  Lordship. 

"  He  took  her  away  and  they  had  tea  and  tea- 
cakes,"  she  said.  "  You  know  you  told  me  aboard 
ship  that  you  would  take  me  to  someone's  cottage, 
a  keeper  or  something  like  that,  whom  you  used  to 
play  with  when  you  were  a  little  chap." 

"  So  I  did.  We  '11  walk  to  Mrs.  Sawyer's  and  ask 
for  a  cup  of  tea.  But,  I  say,  do  you  think  tea  and 
cakes  are  enough  of  a  climax  for  a  beautiful  story 
like  this?  Let's  make  it  they  were  happy  for  ever 
afterward." 

"  But  we  are  real  people." 

"  Pessimist,  let  us  be  the  exception." 

"  All  right." 

"  Then,  say  it." 

"  They  were  happy  for  ever  afterward." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  his  Lordship,  thinking  that 
russet-gold  hair  a-sparkle  with  raindrops  was  finer 
than  all  the  tiara-crowned  heads  in  the  world. 

To  walk  with  her  was  to  share  in  the  inspiration 
of  her  being,  —  to  catch  something  of  the  full-pulsed 
power  that  seemed  to  speed  her  along,  unconscious 
of  effort.  It  was  as  inspiring  as  the  skyward  sweep 
of  a  bird.  The  man  unconsciously  straightened  his 

144 


LOVE    STRAINS    AT   THE    LEASH 

shoulders.  It  was  as  if  the  load  they  bent  beneath 
slipped  off  in  such  goodly  company. 

"  And  whither  does  my  lady  Red  Riding  Hood 
think  she  is  going?  To  carry  butter  and  eggs  to  her 
grandmother  ?  " 

"  Alas,  Sir  Wolf,  I  have  no  grandmother  to  whose 
cottage  I  can  direct  you  for  a  tough  and  simple 
meal." 

"  So  much  the  better,  my  dear,"  —  in  a  properly 
gruff  voice,  —  "I  know  where  to  find  a  daintier  one." 

"  It 's  not '  my  dear  '  in  the  book.  It 's  '  my  child/ 
—  now." 

"  It 's  '  my  dear '  in  real  life,  though  —  at  least, 
that  is  my  reading  of  the  text,"  he  answered  with 
episcopal  gravity. 

The  reward  of  his  audacity  was  a  blush  like  red 
wine  poured  into  a  goblet  of  water,  —  a  moment's 
filtering  and  the  crimson  suffusion  was  complete. 

"  Are  you  trying  to  discover  a  cipher  in  '  Red 
Riding  Hood '  ?  Someone  is  always  trying  to  dis- 
cover a  cipher  in  something,  —  the  copy-book,  Shake- 
speare, the  Bible;  only  Mother  Goose  seems  to  have 
escaped." 

She  spoke  wildly,  hardly  knowing  what  she  in- 
tended to  say ;  a  blind  impulse  to  recover  the  equili- 
brium that  had  gone  when  the  flood-tide  of  maidenly 
consciousness  engulfed  her,  being  the  desperate  need 
of  the  moment. 

"  Red  Riding  Hood  would  make  a  most  alluring 
life  study,  leaving  the  cipher  entirely  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. Its  possibilities  are  endless ;  —  the  naive  charm 
of  the  heroine,  —  her  true  feelings  toward  the  wolf, 
10  145 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

-  has  she  a  spark  of  pity  for  him  ?  If  so,  is  it  but  a 
compassionate  crust  flung  to  a  social  pariah,  or  is  it 
that  rare  sympathy  that  women  give  to  those  with 
whom  the  world  has  gone  wrong?  At  least  it  is 
pity,  and  pity  works  miracles  in  the  rosy  fingers  of 
girlhood.  What  wolf  worthy  of  the  name  that  would 
not  gladly  fight  the  world  for  his  chance  with  it  ?  — 
What  do  you  say  ?  " 

The  dallying  blush  swept  back,  wave-like,  irresist- 
ible, carrying  away  her  pitiful  defences.  She  could 
not  answer,  —  the  labour  of  the  lips  to  forge  a  weapon 
from  the  inward  chaos  ended  in  trembling  defeat. 
She  hurried  ahead,  defiant  of  attitude,  incapable  of 
replying.  These  maiden  crudities  were  so  many 
God-given  gifts  to  Alingham;  he  followed,  loath  to 
break  the  silence  that  spoke  so  eloquently. 

The  light  drizzling  rain,  hardly  more  than  mist, 
clung  to  the  round  young  cheeks  where  the  red 
burned  like  two  warning  signals,  telling  the  plight 
of  a  maiden  craft,  heading  recklessly  for  deep  waters, 
conscious  of  danger,  yet  helpless. 

"  What  do  you  say  ?  "  he  repeated,  after  the  long 
pause. 

"  What  were  we  doing,  —  looking  for  acorns  ? 
No,  ciphers." 

"  Ciphers  are  too  easy  to  find.  Let 's  look  for 
something  else.  The  wolf  got  ahead  of  me,  he  made 
a  cipher  of  the  grandmother;  —  the  gods  did  the 
same  unfriendly  turn  by  me  elsewhere.  Ciphers  are 
in  everything,  except  where  they  belong,  —  at  the 
tail  of  one's  bank  account.  We  '11  not  look  for  them 
in  anything.  Say  rather  that  in  Little  Red  Riding 

146 


LOVE    STRAINS    AT   THE    LEASH 

Hood  I  have  found  a  sphinx,  —  as  inscrutable  as  the 
lady  of  Egypt,  yet  most  adorably  young,  —  what 
man  could  ask  for  more?" 

"  It  sounds  rather  like  new  wine  in  old  bottles." 

"  There  is  scriptural  warrant  for  that." 

"  I  thought  it  was  scriptural  warning.  But  you 
are  conferring  dangerous  titles.  Sphinxes  are  famous 
for  asking  questions,  propounding  riddles,  and  other- 
wise making  themselves  objectionable." 

She  fell  back  into  step  with  him,  —  her  heavy  de- 
fences offered  no  resistance;  but  there  was  a  saucy 
curl  to  the  lips  that  suggested  much  small  ammuni- 
tion comfortably  at  hand,  ready  at  a  moment's 
notice. 

"Objectionable?  —  adorable,  —  let  me  always  be 
interrogated  by  a  sphinx  who  is  young,  lovely,  and 
asks  questions  only  with  her  eyes.  It 's  true  that  no 
one  but  the  angels  could  answer  her  riddles,  but  the 
trying,  Alice,  gives  one  a  winged  feeling." 

He  spoke  with  the  mock  gravity  that  men  some- 
times affect  when  they  dare  not  say  seriously  that 
which  they  feel  so  strongly  that  it  will  not  be  gain- 
said, and  must  be  spoken  in  jest  if  in  no  other  way. 

"  A  winged  feeling,  indeed !  Then  that  is  why 
I  've  seen  nothing  of  you  since  I  've  been  here.  I  'm 
done  with  ocular  questionings,  —  hereafter  you  shall 
be  interrogated  like  a  witness." 

They  had  come  almost  to  a  standstill ;  and  he  no- 
ticed the  miracles  of  design  that  the  rain  had  wrought 
beneath  her  scarlet  hood,  —  rings  within  rings,  ten- 
drils, loops,  swirls,  some  no  larger  than  a  wedding 
ring  and  as  golden;  others,  larger,  and  jewelled 

147 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

with  rain  drops,  would  have  held  a  lady's  wrist.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  the  gods  had  nothing  more  to 
give  in  the  way  of  maiden  sweetness. 

"There  was  some  talk  of  questions?"  said  his 
Lordship. 

"  I  am  going  to  begin  on  the  witness  immediately." 

"  You  will  find  him  intelligent,  I  trust." 

"  I  feel  encumbered  by  all  the  aliases  you  have 
given  me.  Yet,  as  a  sphinx,  I  have  the  right  to  ask 
questions." 

"  It  is  certainly  your  privilege." 

"  Then  why  are  all  your  gates  like  this  ?  "  She 
indicated  with  the  toe  of  a  very  positive-looking  little 
brown  boot  the  disreputable  structure,  hanging  from 
its  hinges,  that  divided  the  park  from  the  planta- 
tion. "  I  should  think  a  man  of  your  size  would 
repair  a  gate  like  that.  Why,  I  could  do  it  myself." 

It  was  his  Lordship's  turn  for  blushing,  and  he 
did  it  in  a  British  and  altogether  unreserved  sort  of 
manner,  that  did  full  justice  to  his  fine  skin  and  his 
full-bloodedness. 

"  Give  it  up,  little  sphinx;  it 's  one  of  those  riddles 
that  was  only  made  up  for  fun.  There  is  n't  any  an- 
swer to  it.  Or  it 's  too  stupid  to  remember  —  I  've 
forgotten  which." 

She  knew  she  had  blundered,  and  hit  him  hard, 
as  she  had  the  night  aboard  ship  when  she  had  asked 
him  about  his  hunting.  Again  she  was  overcome  by 
her  helplessness  to  plead  for  forgiveness,  —  to  follow 
the  blind  bent  of  inclination,  —  to  take  the  big  white 
hand;  the  impulse  had  not  grown  less  with  repres- 
sion, yet  was  she  restrained. 

148 


LOVE  STRAINS  AT  THE  LEASH 

They  walked  in  silence,  almost  in  seeming  indif- 
ference; the  lull  of  rebellious  pulses  before  a  gather- 
ing storm  deceived  them.  Each  brooded  on  the  cause 
that  kept  them  from  their  divine  inheritance. 

The  girl  was  nailed  to  the  conventions  prescribed 
for  her  sex.  She  must  hang  on  the  cross,  seemingly 
impenitent.  The  words  prompted  by  kindly  impulse 
must  not  be  said.  She  felt  the  shame  of  it,  yet  all 
the  dead  and  gone  generations  of  women  within  her 
clamoured  to  keep  up  the  farce. 

And  the  man.  He  had  a  name  and  a  title  to  sell, 
because  it  was  all  that  was  left  of  his  riotous  living. 
And  the  woman  he  loved  had  not  the  wherewithal 
to  buy.  And  he  had  retained  one  or  two  decent 
principles  from  out  the  wreck  of  his  life,  and  one  of 
them  was  that  a  good  woman  must  be  loved  or  left. 
And  yet,  the  sorcery  of  her  presence,  the  hour,  the 
circumstance,  they  two  battling  along  in  the  wind 
and  the  rain.  He  bent  toward  her,  as  the  oak  sways 
to  the  reed  when  tempests  are  a-riot  and  not  to  be 
argued  with  nor  stayed  by  platitudes.  The  little 
reed  was  the  steadier  of  the  two,  —  it  was  her  hour. 

He  drew  her  arm  through  his  and  spoke  her  name 
caressingly. 

Perhaps  it  was  the  glimpse  of  Dunstan  revealed 
by  the  dip  of  the  hill.  Perhaps  it  was  the  spirit  of 
prudence  that  ever  glides  at  the  heels  of  happiness, 
a  lank  shadow  that  cannot  be  shaken  off.  At  all 
events,  the  oak,  bending,  deliciously  conscious  of 
the  acquiescence  of  the  reed,  felt  a  shock  of  the 
realities. 

He  winced  from  the  galling  of  his  chains.  Pale, 
149 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

filmy,  there  floated  before  his  mind  a  shadow  pic- 
ture of  his  mother  and  her  brother  —  as  he  had  often 
seen  them  —  bending  in  consultation,  beak  to  beak, 
the  chins  sloping  away  to  the  vanishing  point,  the 
degenerating  genius  of  the  family  reduced  to  jug- 
gling shillings.  And  he  ran  away  from  duty,  — 
made  a  holiday  over  a  slip  of  a  girl  who  added  only 
new  complications  to  the  situation. 

What  right  had  he  to  a  thought  of  this  girl? 
Might  not  his  fruitless  wooing  be  as  disastrous  as 
those  vagrant  summer  winds  that  blow  in  winter, 
wooing  the  trees  to  blossom  by  their  false  spring- 
time, then  wandering  away,  leaving  the  blossoms  to 
blacken  and  die  in  the  unprotected  blast  ?^ 

"  Women  are  to  be  loved  or  left,"  spoke  up  the 
chorus  of  experience,  inexorably. 

"  Love  her,"  pleaded  inclination. 

"  Leave  her,"  said  prudence,  coldest  and  most 
persistent  of  counsellors. 

"  Love  her,"  and  the  cry  was  echoed  till  he  was 
deaf  with  its  clamour.  It  was  like  the  cry  of  "bread" 
to  the  hungry  mob.  The  craving  throve  on  the 
demand. 

"  What  makes  you  so  quiet  ?  Are  you  sorry  that 
you  came?"  He  was  conscious  of  an  additional 
pressure  on  his  arm. 

"  No,  Little  Red  Riding  Hood,"  he  answered ; 
"  we  are  to  have  a  whole  hour  together,  —  what  could 
trouble  me  ?  " 

"  Then  please  talk,"  she  said.  "  I  have  to  do  so 
much  make-believe  when  you  're  not  around,  that  I 
should  like  a  little  reality  when  you  are." 

150 


LOVE    STRAINS    AT    THE    LEASH 

"  Reality,  reality,"  he  repeated ;  "  this  all  seems 
terribly  real  to  me." 

They  walked  in  silence  through  the  rain  that  a 
moment  before  had  served,  with  its  smiting  gusts 
and  rude  buffetings,  to  make  them  the  merrier;  but 
now  the  autumn  shivered  in  their  blood  and  the  death 
of  things  was  in  their  souls,  that  seemed  to  be  going 
down,  down,  to  the  uttermost  darkness.  They  were 
like  brave  souls  in  a  sinking  ship  who  make  no  de- 
spairing cry  to  the  Deaf  One  who  answers  not. 

It  seemed  to  the  man  that  their  walking  through 
the  rain-rotten  desolation  of  autumn,  together,  yet 
apart,  was  the  brief  summing  up  of  their  own  pitiful 
story. 

He  had  never  known  till  now  what  she  was  to  him, 
that  it  was  to  her  his  soul  had  been  calling  all  these 
weary  years,  as  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilder- 
ness. The  thought  of  it  was  like  the  grip  of  death 
on  his  throat;  and  fear  —  the  fear  of  being  robbed 
of  her  —  struggled  with  nameless  foes  of  her  un- 
protected future,  —  foes  that  would  blot  out  his 
memory  and  take  her  from  him. 

His  first  grief  found  him  as  unschooled  as  the 
tiger  of  the  jungle.  No  one  had  yet  crossed  him  be- 
cause he  had  had  heretofore  the  price  to  pay  for  his 
caprices,  —  he  had  bought  his  way ;  and  his  pur- 
chase he  had  called  strength  of  will.  His  instinct, 
like  the  tiger's,  was  to  fling  a  paw  across  that  which 
he  called  his  own,  and  snarl  defiance;  but  this,  this, 
— he  had  no  philosophy  to  meet  the  present  instance. 

Oh,  the  doubly  distilled  agony  of  meeting  her  too 
late !  It  was  as  if  she  had  been  sent  by  some  hellish 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

fate  to  make  a  mock  of  the  lame  fragment  of  his  ill- 
spent  life.  To  have  found  the  princess  and  to  have 
awakened  her  with  a  kiss,  —  and  to  leave  her  for 
another,  —  this  was  indeed  the  extremity  of  satire, 
the  apotheosis  of  humour. 

And  yet,  they  spoke  no  word.  The  rain  had 
stopped,  and  the  day  was  going  out,  —  grey  and 
dry-eyed,  like  grief  that  feels  the  unavailingness  of 
tears,  and  is  hushed  from  very  despair.  Along  the 
horizon  pale  tips  of  flame  burnt  about  the  edges  of  the 
leaden  clouds,  like  the  candles  that  burn  in  a  chamber 
of  death,  giving  light  without  heat.  A  flock  of  caw- 
ing rooks  wheeled  out  against  the  sullen  sky,  cawing, 
cawing,  black  omens  of  good  luck  that  was  not  for 
them.  They  faced  the  inevitable,  —  that  must  be 
faced,  because  the  mill  of  convention  must  whirl  on, 
and  human  lives  are  the  grist  it  feeds  on. 

They  knew  that  the  end  had  come  to  their  story; 
that  in  the  book  of  fate  it  was  already  down  as  a 
fragment,  —  told,  perhaps,  in  a  score  of  words,  —  a 
chance  meeting,  a  suggestion  of  what  might  have 
been,  and  that  was  all. 

And  yet  they  were  together.  Why  not  make  the 
most  of  the  moment?  —  dance  as  they  did  in  the 
East  while  the  plague  raged  within  the  city's  walls, 
and  to-morrow's  victims  whirled  the  night  away  and 
met  the  old  man  of  the  scythe  —  smiling  ? 

At  least  their  story  had  not  been  spoiled  in  the  tell- 
ing, and,  after  all,  the  best  of  love  is  the  unspoken. 

Reaction!  commanded  nature,  when  sorrow  had 
broken  them  on  her  wheel,  and  that  strange,  inex- 
plicable exaltation  that  seems  reserved  for  the  stricken 

152 


LOVE    STRAINS    AT    THE    LEASH 

took  possession  of  them.  The  Tarantula  of  folly  had 
bitten  them  to  the  quick.  The  girl  broke  the  silence 
that  had  bound  them  so  long  with  a  laugh  that  was 
as  deliciously  vibrant  with  life  as  her  voice.  It  rung 
out  limpid  and  trickling  as  a  silver  chime,  and  there 
was  no  note  of  bitterness  to  mar  its  music.  Aling- 
ham  joined  in. 

"  Why,  we  've  wasted  the  whole  afternoon,"  she 
said. 

"  We  '11  make  the  most  of  the  dregs." 

"  Then  shall  we  race  down  the  hill,  and  play  we  're 
leaving  all  our  troubles  behind  ?  " 

"  It  sounds  like  a  beautiful  game  to  me,"  he 
answered. 


153 


CHAPTER   XVI 
THE   TORMENTING  CLAIRVOYANCE   OF    LOVE 

THE  grim  poverty  of  Dunstan  appealed  to 
Alice  as  no  magnificence  could  have  done. 
It  was  impressive,  despite  its  ill-concealed 
penury,  and  its  emptiness  was  full  of  dignity.  There 
seemed  to  be  no  active  force  at  work  in  the  old  place 
unless  the  slow,  silent  destroyer  that  crumbled  con- 
stantly with  untiring  fingers  could  be  called  active. 
Dunstan  was  dozing  away  peacefully  to  its  last  sleep, 
and  if  some  beautiful  princess  with  a  golden  wand 
did  not  soon  hasten  to  restore  it,  Dunstan  would  be 
too  far  gone  in  its  dozing  to  awaken. 

The  ghost  of  a  dead  and  gone  prosperity  seemed 
to  wander  restlessly  through  the  empty  portions  of 
the  house,  rudely  awakening  slumbering  echoes  in 
picture  galleries  in  which  there  were  no  pictures, 
corridors  that  never  echoed  to  a  human  footfall,  and 
rooms  that  were  never  opened  to  the  light  of  day. 

The  air  of  autumnal  decline  that  was  in  everything 
cried  out  to  Alice's  housewifely  instincts,  and  made 
her  impatient  to  lift  the  poverty  that  hung  like  a  pall 
over  the  place.  Her  young  enthusiasm  craved  the 
privilege  of  opening  the  sealed  windows,  and  the 
supervision  of  a  general  sweeping  and  garnishing 

154 


THE    CLAIRVOYANCE    OF    LOVE 

that  would  replace  the  accumulated  dry  rot  and  cob- 
webs of  the  ages.  And,  for  the  first  time,  she  re- 
membered with  a  thrill  of  absolute  worldliness  cer- 
tain details  of  her  family  history. 

The  vast,  vague  tenderness  she  felt  for  everything 
even  remotely  connected  with  Alingham  began  to 
subside  into  a  devout  veneration  for  his  ruinous  old 
home.  The  traditions,  the  bits  of  history,  that 
cropped  up  daily  in  connection  with  some  old  por- 
trait, weapon,  or  lumbering  bit  of  furniture,  recreated 
for  her  with  subtle  charm  a  world  of  enchanting 
romance. 

With  his  woman-folk  she  was  unaccountably  shy; 
his  mother's  almost  fierce  fulfilment  of  maternal 
duties  to  her  own  daughters  well-nigh  annihilated 
the  small  weed  that  had  grown  up  with  never  a 
guiding  suggestion.  Millicent,  who  accepted  the 
servile  devotion  of  her  betrothed  with  something 
of  a  martyr's  resignation,  froze  her  into  morbid 
self-consciousness  with  elaborate  and  perfunctory 
courtesies. 

With  the  twins  there  were  indications,  at  times, 
that  all  three  would  eventually  arrive  at  some  girlish 
medium  of  communication.  But  the  restrictions  in 
which  the  Misses  Alingham  lived  and  had  their  being 
raised  impregnable  barriers  to  anything  like  real  in- 
timacy. Notwithstanding  the  ephemeral  quality  of 
the  home  atmosphere  at  Dunstan,  lessons  in  the 
gentler  arts  were  unflaggingly  pursued  by  the  twins. 
Not  a  syllable  of  the  foreign  tongues  in  which  they 
conversed  at  guileless  length  was  abated,  —  not  a 
bar  in  the  long  intricate  duets  for  violin  and  piano, 

155 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

whose  supervision  was  at  once  the  Baroness's  duty 
and  pleasure,  that  not  a  note  might  be  slighted.  From 
which  it  will  be  seen  that  the  Misses  Alingham  be- 
longed to  that  old  school  of  young  ladyhood,  now 
happily  passing,  that  tortured  its  victims  into  every 
species  of  refined  accomplishment,  with  the  inevitable 
result  that  it  bred  ladies  with  a  finger  in  every  art 
and  an  interest  in  none.  The  morning  hours  were 
devoted  to  the  more  serious  pursuits  of  music  and 
languages;  after  luncheon  there  was  lace  work,  em- 
broidery, or  fine  cambric  stitching,  which  the  twins 
accepted  each  in  characteristic  fashion.  Maude 
pricked  her  fingers,  bit  off  threads,  and  sometimes, 
when  the  maternal  presence  was  absent,  flung  the 
offending  task  to  the  other  end  of  the  room.  But 
Muriel,  who  was  a  more  patient  soul,  slowly  and 
carefully  rendered  to  needlework  the  time  that  was 
needlework's,  and  being  thrifty  withal,  presented  the 
results  of  her  painstaking  to  friends  at  birthdays  and 
Christmas. 

Alice  was  sitting  with  them  one  afternoon  while 
the  stitching  was  in  progress.  Each  twin  was  en- 
gaged on  some  sight-destroying  task  that  was  accom- 
plished by  pulling  out  multitudinous  threads  and 
replacing  them  with  infinite  difficulty  in  order  to 
get  some  slight  and  pitiful  variation  on  the  original 
weave  of  the  linen,  —  doubtless  a  source  of  great 
revenue  to  the  oculist  but  otherwise  of  uncertain 
utility. 

"  Maude,  you  will  never  be  able  to  do  your  wheel 
when  you  come  to  the  corner.  I  reminded  you  of 
it  last  week  when  you  cut  the  wrong  threads." 

156 


THE    CLAIRVOYANCE    OF    LOVE 

Muriel  laid  down  her  own  embroidery  hoop  with 
satisfaction;    her  wheel  was  beautifully  under  way. 

"  I  know  you  did,"  said  Maude,  stifling  a  yawn. 
"  I  mean  to  lose  it  hoop  and  all  to-night.  I  always 
lose  it  when  I  get  to  the  wheel,"  she  said,  turning  to 
Alice  for  sympathy ;  "  what  is  the  use  of  wheels  ? 
They  only  make  one's  eyes  ache.  I  envy  you  in  not 
having  to  do  them." 

Muriel  raised  a  pair  of  pained  eyebrows  in  distress 
that  her  sister  should  be  guilty  of  such  heresy  in  an 
alien  presence.  But  Alice  basked  in  this  human  weak- 
ness to  which  she  felt  akin.  After  that  day  she  al- 
ways loved  Maude  best. 

She  had  not  seen  Alingham  alone  since  their  walk 
in  the  park,  on  the  day  of  his  return  to  Dunstan. 
And  when  their  eyes  met  by  chance  she  fancied  that 
he  averted  his  more  quickly  than  had  hitherto  been 
his  habit.  Her  experiences,  these  days,  were  not 
without  their  growing  pains.  Life  had  taken  on  a 
keener,  finer  edge.  There  was  greater  potentiality 
of  joy  and  suffering. 

She  no  longer  awakened  in  the  morning  confusedly 
happy  before  her  sleep-dulled  brain  could  grasp  at 
the  deeper,  fuller  meaning  of  the  world  that  awaited 
her.  These  up-risings,  that  had  been  so  joyous,  were 
now  shadowed  by  vague  alarms  that  waited  by  her 
bed  like  bearers  of  ill-tidings.  And  in  these  first 
moments  of  haggard  consciousness  she  would  stretch 
out  her  arms  as  if  to  summon  back  the  tranquillity  of 
those  days  in  which  there  had  been  no  heaviness  of 
spirit,  no  withering  uncertainty,  but  only  the  lulling 
calm  and  the  joyous  anticipations  of  girlhood. 

157 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

The  ever-present  personality  that  had  invaded  her 
life,  dispelling  its  serenity,  demanding  incessantly  of 
that  innermost  self  that  had  no  volition  but  to  give, 
give  —  was  at  once  a  delight  and  torment.  It  vi- 
brated through  all  her  waking  hours  like  the  memory 
of  some  superb  hallelujah  chorus  —  its  vast  indwell- 
ing rhythm  now  subdued,  now  dominant,  but  never 
wholly  relinquishing  its  insistent  harmonies. 

That  doubtful  gift  of  the  gods  —  the  perfect  clair- 
voyance of  a  genuine  love  —  enabled  her  to  know 
broadly  all  that  Alingham  did,  little  as  she  saw  of 
him.  When  he  went  off  shooting  for  the  day,  after 
an  early  breakfast,  then,  indeed,  did  the  house  warn 
her  by  its  emptiness  even  before  she  heard  the  news. 
Unerring  premonition  would  keep  her  at  the  little 
window  in  her  bedroom  by  the  hour  for  the  exqui- 
sitely barren  pleasure  of  seeing  him  walk  by  with 
Mrs.  Gordon  or  Lady  Hamilton.  And  his  footsteps 
sounded  for  her  with  a  mingled  joy  and  terror  that 
seemed  to  suspend  the  beating  of  her  heart.  There 
was  no  sleep  for  her  at  night  till  she  heard  the  fami- 
liar step  pass  along  the  corridor  outside  her  door  to 
his  rooms  beyond.  Why  had  he  stayed  so  late  in  the 
smoking-room?  Did  they  play  for  large  stakes  as 
she  had  once  heard  old  Reggie  hint  to  the  Baroness  ? 
If  so,  had  he  lost? 

She  knew,  by  reason  of  the  exquisite  perception 
that  was  hers  in  all  matters  pertaining  to  Alingham, 
that  dangers  were  impending  at  Dunstan,  and  she 
would  lie  tossing  in  the  bed  besieged  by  burdensome 
thoughts,  battling  with  perplexities  of  the  very  nature 
of  which  she  was  ignorant. 

158 


THE    CLAIRVOYANCE    OF    LOVE 

Sometimes  she  resented  with  maiden  fierceness  the 
continual  hunger  and  thirst  for  his  presence.  Why 
should  she  always  be  on  the  rack  ?  —  why  should  he 
disturb  her  days  and  nights  till  her  tormented  soul 
was  but  the  anticipation  of  his  comings  and  goings? 
She  would  be  a  fool  no  longer.  She  had  grown  to 
be  but  a  barometrical  device  that  told  whether  the 
king  was  absent  or  at  home,  whether  he  had  smiled 
or  been  ill-pleased  —  oh,  the  degradation  of  it! 

She  would  arise,  all  the  woman  in  her  responsive 
to  the  call  for  coquetry,  pretty  pretence,  smiling  in- 
difference, and  go  in  search  of  him,  in  livid  pertur- 
bation, to  wag  a  saucy  tongue  and  flaunt  a  gay 
indifference  to  his  presence. 

For  her,  the  world  had  begun  to  whirl  about  Aling- 
ham  in  a  series  of  concentric  circles.  Her  youth  no 
longer  lagged,  a  state  of  colourless  being;  it  had 
become  the  orbit  through  which  he  coursed,  planet- 
like,  triumphant,  a  brother  to  the  stars. 

And  what  of  the  man  who  had  brought  out  the 
best  a  woman  has  to  give?  His  affection  for  her 
was  the  utmost  of  which  a  man  is  capable  at  the 
eleventh  hour  of  his  experience;  and  the  pleasure 
he  took  in  her  youth  and  innocence  had  in  it,  as 
his  uncle  had  said,  more  of  the  mature  apprecia- 
tion of  a  threescore  worldling  than  most  men  of 
thirty  would  have  been  capable  of  offering;  while 
she,  out  of  the  fulness  of  her  inexperience,  devoutly 
said  grace  for  the  dregs. 

Love  lent  him  no  wings  with  which  to  follow 
her  in  her  wild  young  flights.  Much  living  had 
made  him  a  denizen  of  lower  earth.  He  had  out- 

159 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

lived  the  exquisite  madness  that  is  the  dower  of  a 
first  great  passion,  so  long  ago  that  he  could  not 
have  told  you  on  whom  it  had  been  squandered. 
There  had  been  so  many  episodes  in  his  life  with 
which  the  present  could  be  compared,  —  and  com- 
parison is  the  reduction  of  sentiment  to  a  commodity. 
Still  the  importance  with  which  he  regarded  all  mat- 
ters appertaining  to  the  affections  gave  to  every  pass- 
ing passion  the  dignity  of  a  finality.  And  while  the 
other  women  that  he  had  cared  for  now  dwindled 
into  satellites,  still  they  twinkled  softly  in  the  even- 
ing of  his  experience ;  not  so  with  the  girl  —  there 
was  but  one  sun  in  her  sky,  and  no  stars  could  shine 
for  its  glory. 


160 


CHAPTER  XVII 

A  SITUATION   CONTRIVED   BY   THE   MANAGE- 
MENT PROVES   FRUITLESS 

ALINGHAM  had  begun  to  feel  that  his  role 
of  host  to  the  Dunstan  house-party  was  be- 
ginning- to  resemble  the  bad  quarter  of  an 
hour  before  dinner  indefinitely  prolonged.  There 
was  a  tension  in  the  atmosphere  that  ate  into  the 
reserve  force  of  the  guests,  even  as  the  entertain- 
ment ate  into  the  borrowed  cash  of  the  Alinghams. 

The  Honourable  Reginald  made  up  his  mind  to 
go  to  Egypt  after  it  was  all  over,  whichever  way  it 
turned  out;  he  always  went  to  Egypt  after  a  great 
crisis.  The  last  time  he  had  been  there  was  immedi- 
ately after  his  wife's  death,  when,  on  discovering 
that  pleasures  are  apt  to  pall  if  there  is  no  one  to 
object  to  them,  he  lost  no  time  in  canonising  himself, 
a  martyr  to  conjugal  fidelity.  The  suspense  at  Dun- 
stan was  ruining  what  was  left  to  him  in  the  way 
of  nerves,  and  the  opera-bouffe  cook  was  depriving 
him  of  his  last  remnant  of  digestion.  He  felt  that 
the  limit  of  avuncular  self-sacrifice  had  been  reached. 

In  the  opinion  of  the  Board  of  Strategy,  consist- 
ing of  the  Dowager  and  himself,  the  engagement 
of  Lord  Alingham  and  Mrs.  Gordon  could  not  be 
brought  about  too  quickly,  as  the  cost  of  a  prolonged 
n  161 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

siege  was  absolutely  incompatible  with  the  family 
credit.  His  Lordship  could  never  quite  make  up  his 
mind,  during  these  days  of  uncertainty,  which  he 
resembled  the  more  closely;  a  political  candidate  in 
the  hands  of  his  friends,  or  a  prize-fighter  in  the 
hands  of  his  trainer.  When  the  time  came,  he  meant 
to  be  accepted  or  rejected  as  befitted  a  man  of  his 
particular  social  stratum;  in  the  mean  time  he  was 
glad  to  leave  the  responsibilities  of  the  campaign  to 
other  hands. 

The  guests  at  Dunstan  were  not  slow  in  discover- 
ing that  the  Management  never  saw  Lord  Alingham 
unoccupied  for  a  moment  without  sending  him  to 
Mrs.  Gordon  on  some  flimsy  pretence,  and,  partly 
realising  the  exigency  of  the  situation,  they  fell  in 
with  the  Managerial  tactics. 

If  Mrs.  Gordon  entered  the  drawing-room  (C) 
the  entire  company,  with  the  exception  of  Lord 
Alingham,  would  make  irrelevant  excuses  and  file 
out  (D)  ;  the  whole  performance  had  the  frankness 
of  stage  directions  that  read,  "  Exit  all  but  lover  and 
heroine."  On  these  occasions  Alingham  would  turn 
with  a  finely  concealed  weariness  to  Mrs.  Gordon, 
thankful  that  his  order  countenanced  a  self-restraint 
that  had  much  of  the  same  outward  semblance  as 
boredom.  Mrs.  Gordon  never  lacked  the  necessary 
tact  wherewith  to  meet  these  exigencies.  She  was 
one  of  those  women  whose  audacity  is  robbed  of  evi- 
dent presumption  by  an  apparent  frankness.  The 
otherwise  embarrassing  exodus  she  would  turn  into 
a  jest,  telling  Alingham  that  as  they  had  been  left 
to  themselves  by  so  strange  and  unlooked-for  a  com- 

162 


CONTRIVED    by   the    MANAGEMENT 

bination  of  circumstances,  there  was  really  nothing 
left  for  him  but  to  make  pretty  speeches,  in  which 
case  she  would  take  the  most  becoming  chair  and 
endeavour  to  do  her  part. 

"  My  skirt  falls  with  a  great  deal  of  expression, 
with  the  train  to  the  left,  don't  you  think?  No,  I 
shall  not  allow  the  toe  of  my  slipper  to  protrude; 
good  actresses  don't  do  it  any  more.  I  might  be 
opening  and  shutting  a  fan,  or  just  closing  a  book 
that  would  furnish  us  with  a  nice  little  topic  for 
discussion." 

On  the  occasion  in  question,  Alingham  was  re- 
minded of  his  rather  heavy  luncheon  with  its  accom- 
panying bottle  of  stout  by  a  benumbing  inability  to 
fall  to  the  necessary  nonsensical  depths. 

"  And  now  for  our  Ollendorf  —  but  you  need  not 
clear  your  throat.  I  'm  not  the  House  of  Lords  — 
and  you  don't  have  to  make  a  speech." 

Alingham  wondered  if  she  knew  that  his  bank- 
ruptcy debarred  him  from  addressing  that  august 
assemblage,  and,  feebly  struggling  with  his  cue, 
decided  that  if  he  were  permitted  a  black  cigar,  he 
might  yet  evade  the  stigma  of  utter  imbecility. 

"Ollendorf — did  you  make  it,  Mrs.  Gordon?  How 
will  this  do?  Would  the  bewildered  man  whom  the 
considerate  friends  left  alone  with  the  beautiful  lady 
be  considered  presumptuous  if  he  asked  a  favour?" 

There  was  the  least  possible  hurrying  of  Mrs. 
Gordon's  extremely  self-contained  pulses.  It  had 
come,  at  last;  but  why  had  he  not  led  up  to  it  with 
more  circuitous  grace?  It  would  serve  him  right  if 
she  refused,  but  then  she  was  rather  fond  of  this 

163 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

handsome  irresponsible  boy,  who  invariably  upset 
one's  calculations. 

"  It  would  depend  on  the  nature  of  the  question, 
and  how  prettily  the  bewildered  man  asked  it." 

"  It  is  a  very  presumptuous  favour  —  but  the  gra- 
cious lady  is  kind:  would  she  object  if  I  smoked?  " 

Had  he  done  it  to  make  fun  of  her?  These  sleek 
men  who  always  played  at  being  bored  were  hard 
to  fathom.  She  struggled  to  keep  the  petulant  note 
from  her  voice,  and  answered: 

"  By  all  means ;  I  never  aspired  to  rival  black 
coffee  in  a  man's  after-luncheon  estimation." 

"  It 's  awfully  good  of  you  —  but  why  talk  of 
rivals  ?  A  cigar  is  never  a  lady's  rival ;  it 's  her 
greatest  ally.  Each  is  just  a  shade  more  perfect 
with  the  other." 

"  It  sounds  rather  like  a  tobacconist's  testimo- 
nial, does  n't  it  ?  The  Something  or  other  cigar,  — 
woman's  greatest  friend;  or,  how  he  was  induced 
to  remain  at  home  after  meals." 

"Induced?  I  supposed  the  modern  man's  'time 
was  up '  after  meals,  and  he  was  forced  to  flee  his 
garden  of  Eden." 

"To  get  pepsin  for  the  apple-tart?  —  or  to  keep 
an  appointment  with  Lilith  ?  " 

"  Are  n't  you  getting  your  chronology  mixed  ? 
Lilith,  I  believe,  anticipated  Eve  and  the  apple-tart." 

"  And  Adam  discovered  that  the  anticipation  was 
better  than  the  reality,  the  appetizer  than  the  feast, 
and  so  on  through  the  whole  alphabet  of  pessimism. 
Why  is  the  modern  woman  always  a  pessimist?" 

She  smiled,  but  there  was  an  eloquent  suggestion  of 
164 


tears  about  her  long  lashes.  She  could  not  have  done 
more  to  bring  about  a  declaration,  but  Alingham 
smoked  on  steadily. 

"  I  'm  blest  if  I  know,  unless  it 's  because  they  don't 
smoke  after  meals." 

"  Is  there  always  so  much  nicotine  in  your  point 
of  view  ?  You  '11  be  acquiring  a  smoker's  heart." 

"  If  you  only  indulged  in  the  filthy  weed,  Mrs. 
Gordon,  hope  would  make  me  the  happiest  of  men, 
but  you  have  no  heart  —  not  even  a  tobacco  heart." 

She  had  the  abstracted  air  of  one  who  is  worry- 
ing something  clever  out  of  her  consciousness.  He 
waited  patiently  as  a  cat  beside  a  rat-hole.  At  last 
it  came,  after  the  faintest  little  suggestion  of  by-play. 

"  A  heart,  Lord  Alingham,  in  a  woman  of  the 
world  is  like  a  tail  on  a  fox-terrier;  both  are  born 
with  these  appendages,  and  both  are  sacrificed  to 
conventionality. ' ' 

He  felt  certain  that  it  was  the  stout  he  had  had 
for  luncheon  that  kept  his  faculties  from  rallying  to 
a  reply,  —  stout  was  filthy  stuff  to  talk  nonsense  on ; 
and  it  was  a  scurvy  trick  of  the  Management  to  send 
him  off  to  make  love  to  Mrs.  Gordon  immediately 
after  meals.  It  was  playing  the  deuce  with  his  diges- 
tion and  he  meant  to  protest.  Aloud,  he  said  with 
heavy  sweetness: 

"  But,  dear  lady,  —  why  are  you  so  cynical  ?  A 
pretty  mouth  dispensing  cynicism  is  like  a  delicious 
peach  —  er  —  withering  on  a  wall." 

"  Getting  bitter  because  no  one  takes  it,  —  you  are 
unflattering,  Lord  Alingham." 

"  I  'm  only  lamenting  that  such  a  mouth  —  " 
165 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

"  We  '11  keep  to  cynicism,  if  you  please." 

"  But  I  don't  know  anything  about  it ;  please  de- 
fine a  cynic,  Mrs.  Gordon." 

"The  cynic  is  the  Peeping  Tom,  the  Spy;  he 
takes  his  view  of  life  at  the  key-hole,  and  sees  things 
as  they  are,  not  as  they  ought  to  be." 

The  mere  metaphorical  mention  of  these  things 
made  his  Lordship  look  apprehensive. 

"  But  I  make  it  a  rule  to  leave  the  key  in  the  door," 
he  began  absently.  "  Really,  Mrs.  Gordon  —  " 

There  was  a  faint  chuckle  from  a  corpulent  arm- 
chair that  stood  with  its  back  to  them  in  the  window 
recess.  Glancing  round,  Mrs.  Gordon  saw  the  pale 
gold  head  of  Lady  Hamilton,  who  had  not  left  with 
the  chorus  for  reasons  of  her  own. 

"Won't  you  join  us?  We  are  trying  to  define  a 
cynic,"  said  Mrs.  Gordon  sweetly.  "  Do  you  agree 
with  me  that  he  is  a  Peeping  Tom,  Lady  Hamilton? 
your  opinion  would  be  so  interesting."  She  was 
very  skilful  at  handling  her  weapons,  and  there  was 
not  the  faintest  trace  of  murder  in  her  tones. 

"  Thanks  —  but  do  you  know,  I  was  so  absorbed 
in  my  book  that  I  did  not  know  anyone  was  here." 
It  was  a  copy  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  Sermons  she  was 
holding  upside  down.  "  I  really  must  go  and  write 
some  letters  in  time  for  the  afternoon  post." 

"  Do  postpone  your  letters,"  begged  Mrs.  Gordon, 
nicely  poising  her  weapon  for  the  attack.  "  You  have 
no  idea  how  good  it  is  to  hear  a  real  American  again, 
Lady  Hamilton,  —  it  quite  makes  me  homesick  to 
hear  you  talk." 

The  titled  American  writhed  a  moment.  "  You 
1 66 


CONTRIVED    by   the    MANAGEMENT 

are  from  Arizona,  are  you  not,  Mrs.  Gordon  ?  How 
interesting.  I  never  supposed  anyone  really  came 
from  Arizona  but  the  rich  uncle  in  plays,  who  dies 
and  leaves  one  all  his  money.  It  must  be  so  pic- 
turesque with  the  dear  little  prairie  dogs,  cowboys, 
and  things.  You  are  the  only  American  I  have  ever 
met  from  Arizona." 

"  Really?    And  I  have  never  been  in  Hoboken." 

Unconscious  of  the  storm,  Alingham  continued  to 
smoke  with  British  blandness. 

"  How  singular,  really,  that  there  should  be  places 
in  your  own  country  that  neither  of  you  knows  about. 
It  must  be  tremendous." 

"  It  offers  unusual  social  opportunity,"  Mrs.  Gor- 
don said,  with  the  faintest  suggestion  of  a  nod  toward 
Lady  Hamilton. 

"  Hardly  so  much  as  England,"  responded  her 
Ladyship ;  "  but  really  my  letters  will  never  be 
written." 


167 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

A  PROPOSAL    MINUS  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

LORD  ALINGHAM  and  Mrs.  Gordon  had 
driven  to  Drillford  station  in  the  dog-cart 
to  meet  a  belated  guest,  one  Dickey  Win- 
chester, who  had  written  that  he  would  arrive  on 
the  4:27.  In  place  of  Dickey's  rotund  cheerfulness, 
however,  there  was  a  wire  regretting  that  he  had 
missed  his  train,  and  stating  that  he  would  arrive 
on  the  5:13. 

Alingham  showed  the  telegram  to  Mrs.  Gordon, 
who  decided  that  the  only  thing  to  do,  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, was  to  wait  for  the  later  train.  The 
4:27  thundered  by,  and  with  it  went  his  Lordship's 
last  hope  of  escape. 

The  Management  had  planned  the  details  of  this 
little  expedition  to  the  station ;  and  Alingham  was  by 
no  means  certain  that  his  uncle  had  not  wired  Dickey 
to  take  a  later  train.  Alingham  had  acquiesced  in 
their  arrangement  from  sheer  inability  to  contend 
further  against  the  inevitable.  Since  their  arrival 
at  Dunstan,  Mrs.  Gordon  had  been  constantly  thrown 
at  his  head  by  the  Management,  who  seemed  in  league 
with  her  to  such  an  extent  as  to  give  no  hope  of  quar- 
ter from  the  fair  missile,  who  not  only  gave  every 

168 


A    PROPOSAL 


indication  of  enjoying  the  exercise,  but  continually 
put  herself  in  positions  to  be  thrown. 

In  his  utter  recklessness  he  had,  that  very  after- 
noon, gone  the  length  of  introducing  a  little  fictitious 
eagerness  into  his  invitation  to  Mrs.  Gordon  to  ac- 
company him  to  the  station  for  Dickey.  Yet  it  had 
been  enough  to  justify  her  in  making  a  special  toilet 
for  the  occasion,  —  heliotrope  and  chinchilla,  with 
gold  and  orange  in  the  small  toque.  The  sartorial 
appeal  escaped  his  attention,  but  he  noticed,  as  they 
paced  the  length  of  the  station  platform,  that  her 
hair  was  over-crimped ;  it  conjured  up  on  his  mental 
retina  visions  of  her  boudoir;  he  saw  the  heating- 
iron  and  sniffed  the  odour  of  singed  hair ;  he  bit  his 
lips  to  conceal  a  smile,  —  the  grotesque  had  turned 
the  edge  of  his  tragedy. 

There  was  none  of  the  tension  associated  with 
travel  about  the  waiting-room  of  Drillford  station; 
it  was  musty,  depressing,  and  seemed  full  of  the 
petrified  tediousness  of  expecting  trains  that  were 
late,  and  the  poignant  regret  of  missing  those  that 
were  on  time.  The  fresh  air  was  preferable,  despite 
the  December  chill.  Brackett,  one  of  Alingham's 
tenants,  was  the  only  occupant  of  the  platform  be- 
sides themselves;  he  burrowed  out  of  sight  in  a 
third-class  waiting-room  as  soon  as  Alingham  had 
acknowledged  his  obsequious  salutation.  Brackett 
was  a  tenant  of  the  fine  old  school;  he  would  not 
have  dreamed  of  breathing  the  same  air  as  his  land- 
lord. If  the  latter  preferred  the  platform,  the  place 
for  Brackett  was  manifestly  the  waiting-room. 

169 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

Alingham  had  a  gambler's  superstition  about  doing 
anything  to  change  the  current  of  his  luck,  when  it 
seemed  disposed  to  be  favourable.  Instinctively  he 
felt  that  the  Fates  were  smiling,  and  the  thing  for 
him  to  do  was  to  drift  with  the  tide.  Had  he  not 
won  two  thousand  pounds?  had  not  Blanche  burned 
his  letters  and  relinquished  all  claims  on  him?  And 
was  he  not  honestly  in  love  for  the  first  time  in  his 
life?  Why  cut  across  his  luck  by  proposing  to  a 
woman  to  whom  he  had  an  aversion?  What  if  she 
did  have  money  ?  —  a  few  more  lucky  turns  at  rou- 
lette, a  little  run  to  Monte  Carlo  —  who  could  tell  ? 
-  perhaps  he  could  again  break  the  bank. 

His  courage  rose  as  the  distance  between  himself 
and  his  family  increased,  —  and  yet,  he  did  not  dare 
to  meet  the  accusing  eye  of  the  two  Howards  and 
say  it  was  undone. 

They  were  pacing  the  station  platform.  Mrs. 
Gordon  attributed  his  abstraction  and  monosyllabic 
attempts  at  conversation  to  the  preoccupation  of  the 
prospective  suitor.  She  held  her  peace  and  looked 
demure;  it  was  her  conception  of  the  eternal  femi- 
nine, her  favourite  role  for  sentimental  situations. 

While  she  decided  to  accept  him,  for  the  reasons 
already  stated,  he  endured  the  agony  of  a  hunted 
thing.  To  give  himself  countenance,  he  read  the 
signs  with  which  the  station  at  Drillford  was  plas- 
tered. He  read  that  a  certain  brand  of  cocoa  was 
invigorating  and  nutritious;  that  a  single  spoonful 
of  custard  powder  would  accomplish  the  work  of 
twelve  eggs;  and  that  hair  curled  on  the  Princess 
Victoria  curling-iron  never  lost  its  curl,  —  he  was 

170 


A    PROPOSAL 


certain  that  the  woman  he  was  about  to  ask  to  be 
his  wife  had  used  one. 

His  feeling  was  that  of  an  actor  who  in  the  last 
week  of  a  long  season  feels  bored  with  his  lines,  and 
has  to  summon  to  his  aid  all  the  art  of  which  he  is 
master  to  say  the  stupid,  meaningless  words. 

"  Elizabeth,"  he  began  with  studied  tenderness, 
and  then  stopped.  The  name  sounded  strange  to 
him,  —  he  had  never  thought  of  her  Christian  name 
before.  She  seemed  to  him  to  have  been  born  a 
Mrs.  Gordon. 

"  Elizabeth,"  he  repeated,  still  under  the  spell  of 
its  impersonality. 

"  Why,  what  have  I  done?  "  she  asked  tentatively. 
"  No  one  ever  calls  me  Elizabeth  unless  I  am  to  be 
reproved."  Her  inward  question  was :  "  Is  he  going 
to  ask  me  to  marry  him,  or  if  he  may  smoke  ?  " 

"  It  is  I  who  deserve  the  reproof  —  I  'm  going 
to  be  abominably  daring." 

The  ring  of  their  footsteps  on  the  station  plat- 
form, as  they  doubled  it  in  silence,  lacked  unison; 
the  lighter  footfall  never  fell  in  harmony  with  the 
heavier.  But  each  was  too  deeply  engrossed  with 
the  inner  significance  of  the  situation  to  heed  such 
trifling  externals.  They  continued  their  walk  un- 
mindful of  the  discordance  of  mismated  footsteps. 

Her  pulses  beat  with  decorous  precision,  the  inci- 
dent of  the  grey  envelope  and  of  Lady  Hamilton's 
interruption  of  their  last  tete-a-tete  had,  for  the  time 
being,  exhausted  her  supply  of  sentimental  gratuities. 
Her  position  was  that  of  a  pauper  who  has  been  reck- 
less with  the  stray  pennies  the  Fates  have  sent  him, 

171 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

and  must  needs  forego  the  pleasures  of  spending 
when  the  great  occasion  presents  itself.  Imperturb- 
able, she  awaited  the  turn  of  events,  diverting  her- 
self with  maxims  of  her  own  construction.  If  he 
asked  the  privilege  of  smoking,  well  and  good;  if 
he  asked  her  to  be  his  wife,  well  and  better.  A 
widow  who  has  not  discovered  a  better  place  to  keep 
her  heart  than  her  sleeve,  deserves  all  she  loses.  It 
was  intolerable  that  woman  had  to  find  her  happiness 
in  being  normal,  but  since  the  fact  was  incontrover- 
tible, it  was  better  to  marry  a  husband  and  let  him 
mildly  bully  one  than  to  go  philandering  after  a  career 
on  one's  own  responsibility.  Some  sort  of  home 
anchor  was  necessary  to  keep  one  from  wandering 
too  far.  And  if  one  man  did  not  offer  these  things, 
the  next  did. 

She  assured  herself  that  the  contemplation  of  such 
every-day  truths  could  bring  no  wild  heart-bounds 
to  the  woman  of  the  world  who  regarded  them 
through  the  lorgnette  of  convention.  With  such 
philosophy  did  she  stay  herself,  while  he  began  to 
choose  the  words  of  his  declaration  with  extreme 
deliberateness. 

His  head  was  like  an  echoing  cavern  that  rung 
with  stupid  reiterations  of  protest  against  the  thing 
he  was  about  to  do.  There  was  no  sound  in  the  still 
December  air  but  the  ring  of  their  mismated  steps 
on  the  station  platform. 

A  growing  petulance  at  the  turn  affairs  had  taken 
robbed  him  of  the  necessary  tolerance  wherewith  to 
dally  longer  with  the  inevitable.  Since  he  was  to  be 
married  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  his  family,  why 

172 


A    PROPOSAL 


delay  their  convenience  ?  He  began  to  take  a  morbid 
pleasure  in  the  thought  of  precipitating  the  affair. 
Should  he  persuade  her  to  elope  with  him,  and  be 
married,  in  London,  next  day,  by  special  license? 
His  intolerance  of  the  finality  was  momentarily 
checked  by  the  enlivening  prospect  through  which  it 
might  be  approached.  It  would  be  amusing  to  give 
the  Management  —  with  its  eternal  espionage  and 
conniving  —  the  slip. 

But  Alice?  He  tore  out  the  hope  that  had  slowly 
and  unconsciously  been  taking  root  in  his  life  since 
he  had  known  her,  and  regarded  it  despairingly  as 
a  mother  might  look  on  the  face  of  her  dying  child, 
her  only  one.  Why  had  it  to  be?  Why  must  the 
best  of  him  be  put  away,  like  a  dead  thing,  to  rot  in 
the  ground  unseen?  Why,  why?  The  instinct  of 
escape  which  leads  a  man  to  jump  from  a  burning 
ship  into  the  black  ocean  was  on  him;  behind  were 
the  crackling  timbers,  before  the  black,  still  depths 
in  which  he  might  at  least  hope  for  peace.  But 
what  peace  could  there  be  for  him,  with  these  women 
to  provide  for?  There  could  be  no  open  door  when 
duty  chained  him.  Their  plight  was  of  his  making; 
he  had  not  the  heart  to  make  it  worse. 

"Of  what  is  he  thinking?"  she  asked  herself. 
"  Do  his  thoughts  run  parallel  to  mine  ?  Does  he 
consider  marrying  me  as  I  consider  accepting  him? 
Do  I  represent  some  dismal  makeshift  in  his  life,  as 
he  does  in  mine?  " 

And  the  woman  in  her  —  the  dependent,  loving,  in- 
consequent Eve  —  could  have  wept  in  her  loneliness. 

"  Elizabeth  is  too  formal  a  name  for  me  to  make 

173 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

my  prayer  with,  dear  lady;  may  I  call  you  Betty, 
like  the  little  girl?" 

"  I  can  hardly  fancy  Alice  with  such  a  bass  voice," 
she  answered,  struggling  to  assume  a  lightness  of 
tone  she  was  far  from  feeling. 

"  Is  n't  chaff  a  waste  of  time  between  us  ?  I  come 
to  you  a  mendicant,  asking  many  alms  —  I  shall 
spare  you  a  beggar's  whine  —  or  a  boy's  sentimen- 
tality. We  have  both  lived  our  lives,  and  the  best 
is  no  longer  ours  to  give.  It  is  only  the  shadows  of 
twilight  I  am  asking  you  to  share  with  me,  dear,  a 
ruined  old  house  and  the  heart  of  an  old-young  man, 
but  if  you  will  say  yes,  I  shall  try  to  be  worthy  of 
you.  I  shall  try  to  make  you,  at  least,  content." 

Alingham  was  conscious  of  the  melodramatic 
quality  of  this  declaration,  and  half  expected  that 
Mrs.  Gordon  would  immediately  charge  him  with 
the  insincerity  with  which  he  felt  branded. 

But,  on  the  contrary,  his  unheard-of  seriousness, 
the  sudden  dropping  of  the  banter  with  which  he 
habitually  addressed  her,  the  ring  of  regret  for  the 
something  that  was  not  his  to  give,  appealed  to  her 
despite  the  painful  frankness  of  his  avowal.  She 
liked  what  she  considered  his  bold  sincerity;  they 
had  lived  the  best  of  their  lives,  they  had  met  as 
travellers  in  the  noonday  glare  of  the  wilderness,  and 
their  way  across  the  parched  wastes  was  to  be  the 
pleasanter  for  their  comradeship  —  that  was  all  they 
asked. 

She  was  so  weary  of  her  worldliness.  She  had 
been  asking  for  bread  and  receiving  stones  for  so 
long  that  the  poor  little  crust  just  flung  to  her  went 


A    PROPOSAL 


to  her  head  like  wine.  Had  they  been  anywhere  but 
on  the  platform  of  a  railway  station,  she  would  have 
cried  out  her  sorrows  and  joys  on  his  shoulder  like 
the  crudest  school-girl. 

For  answer  she  gave  him  her  hand.  The  5  113 
rounded  the  curve,  Dickey's  rubicund  face  showed 
at  one  of  the  windows.  There  was  no  time  for 
tender  exchanges,  —  it  was  the  one  thing  Alingham 
felt  he  had  to  be  thankful  for,  in  the  wreck  of  his 
life  that  stared  him  in  the  face. 

His  greeting  to  Dickey  was  absurd  in  its  cordiality, 
considering  that  the  two  men  were  by  no  means  in- 
timate friends.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Alingham  had 
never  been  so  glad  to  see  anyone  as  he  was  to  see 
Dickey  at  that  particular  time.  It  prevented  him 
from  keeping  up  the  farce  for  the  time  being,  at 
least,  and  he  was  in  a  frame  of  mind  where  every 
moment's  respite  counts. 

Mrs.  Gordon,  who  was  in  the  humour  for  consol- 
ing thoughts,  attributed  the  unusual  warmth  of  her 
fiance's  greeting  to  his  rapture  at  having  just  been 
accepted  by  her.  She  liked  him  the  better  for  his 
simple,  unaffected  joy,  —  it  was  just  the  one  neces- 
sary human  touch  that  she  had  always  felt  he  lacked. 

And  so  they  drove  to  Dunstan,  Dickey  pluming 
himself  on  some  unexpected  charm,  Alingham  thank- 
ing Heaven  he  had  been  spared  love-making  with  a 
woman  he  could  never  love,  and  Mrs.  Gordon  smil- 
ingly complacent  in  her  triumph  over  the  most  in- 
different man  in  England,  whose  love  for  her  gave 
him  the  enthusiasm  of  a  butcher-boy.  Thought- 
transference  was  not  of  the  party. 


CHAPTER   XIX 

CONTAINING   SOME    TALK  AND   AN    IMPENDING 
ANNOUNCEMENT 

FOR  the  unaccountable,  but  nevertheless  suffi- 
cient reason  that  events  are  given  to  pro- 
claiming  themselves   in   assemblages   before 
their    due    announcement,    the    guests    at    Dunstan 
knew,  on  the  day  Lord  Alingham  asked  Mrs.  Gor- 
don to  be  his  wife,  that  the  occurrence  for  which 
they  had  been  gathered  together  had  come  to  pass. 

Had  she  accepted  or  rejected  him?  Surmise  was 
rife.  Everyone  had  his  individual  reasons  for  antici- 
pating congratulations  or  a  bland  unconsciousness, 
in  the  event  of  urgent  telegrams  that  would  dissolve 
the  house-party,  in  the  interests  of  mythical  business. 

Nothing  could  have  been  less  luminous  than  the 
demeanour  of  the  chief  dramatis  personae,  and  their 
social  small  change  was  neither  of  greater  nor  less 
value  than  that  which  they  had  dealt  and  returned, 
to  the  amusement  of  their  friends,  from  the  begin- 
ning. To  expect,  however,  that  such  verbal  experts 
as  Lord  Alingham  and  Mrs.  Gordon  would  barter 
words  in  so  slovenly  a  manner  as  to  permit  the 
hazarding  of  guesses  regarding  their  specific  value, 
was  to  admit  a  naivete  more  than  childish. 

176 


AN   IMPENDING  ANNOUNCEMENT 

The  desperation  of  their  host's  plight  was  as  visible 
to  his  guests  through  the  dismally  sincere  attempts 
at  hospitality  as  is  the  formation  of  the  skull  seen 
through  the  lightening  flesh  of  wasting  disease.  To 
witness  the  final  gasps  of  the  spendthrift  was  to  take 
issue  for  or  against  him,  and  the  consequent  uncer- 
tainty of  the  result  drove  spontaneity  from  the  board, 
and  gave  to  the  meal  something  of  the  grewsome 
conviviality  of  a  funeral  feast. 

And  as  the  ladies  rose  in  obedience  to  a  signal 
from  their  hostess  at  the  conclusion  of  the  meal,  it 
was  with  a  feeling  of  gratitude  to  Providence  that 
the  blessing  for  which  they  were  accounted  thankful 
was  at  an  end,  rather  than  for  the  bounty  thereof. 

The  crystal  lustre  in  the  white  salon  had  been 
lighted  for  the  first  time  since  the  opening  of  Dun- 
stan,  and  its  chilling  illumination  of  the  classic  frieze 
added  not  a  little  to  the  almost  theatrical  anticipation 
of  impending  climax.  Later,  coffee  imparted  an  at- 
mosphere of  ephemeral  domesticity,  despite  the  frigid 
impassivity  of  the  Olympians. 

"  Ugh,"  said  Mrs.  Gordon,  with  a  little  shiver, 
as  Lord  Alingham  came  up  smiling  languidly.  "  All 
these  marble  ladies  and  gentlemen  quite  frighten  me. 
I  feel  as  if  I  were  drinking  coffee  with  the  gods,  and 
had  not  the  proper  social  credentials." 

"  I  'd  back  you  to  hold  your  own,  even  then,"  he 
answered  with  almost  marital  equivocality.  Their 
bearing  seemed  an  ineffectual  struggle  against  bore- 
dom ;  seeing  them  thus  together,  the  bulk  of  opinion 
disfavoured  the  idea  of  an  engagement. 

"  I  should  not  like  it  even  with  the  credentials ; 
12  177 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

it  would  be  terribly  depressing  for  me  to  live  con- 
tinually in  the  society  of  a  lady  who,  like  Diana 
opposite,  for  instance,  spends  her  entire  life  aiming, 
but  never  hits  anything,  —  how  diagnostic  of  her 
sex,  the  eternal  aiming,  —  the  never  hitting !  " 

"  I  fancied  the  modern  woman  not  only  hit  the 
bull's  eye,  but  broke  the  machine,  the  record,  and 
everything  in  the  vicinity."  He  wondered  hopelessly 
whither  they  were  drifting  in  those  labyrinths  of 
verbiage  of  which  she  seemed  never  to  weary. 

"  I  like  people  to  do  and  have  done  with  what- 
ever they  are  doing,"  she  added  briskly,  "  and  then 
begin  on  something  else.  That  is  why  the  stage  in- 
terests me  more  than  real  life;  the  climaxes  come 
more  swiftly,  the  actors  do  not  get  all  their  heroism 
ground  out  of  them  by  the  long  strain.  Almost 
anyone  could  be  heroic  if  the  opportunity  came 
about  dramatically  and  quickly,  —  it 's  the  long, 
weary  grind  that  takes  the  potentiality  for  heroism 
out  of  all  of  us." 

"  Another  advantage  that  the  stage  has  over  real 
life  is  the  curtain.  No  home  should  be  without  its 
curtain  to  ring  down  on  embarrassing  situations." 

"  But  your  curtain  would  stunt  social  development. 
What  is  a  better  test  of  good  breeding  than  the  art 
of  meeting  embarrassing  situations  gracefully  ?  " 

"  Then  you  would  divide  the  ill-behaved  from  the 
well-used,  who,  of  course,  would  have  no  embarrass- 
ing situations  to  cover." 

"  Indeed,  no,  I  should  not  divide  them.  Life  is 
far  too  dull  as  it  is." 

Alingham,  who  had  no  interest  in  the  tete-a-tete, 
178 


AN  IMPENDING  ANNOUNCEMENT 

welcomed  the  sight  of  Boadicea  Byng  and  the  de- 
fenceless Usher,  who  were  wandering  about  looking 
at  the  frieze  with  a  conscientious  resignation  that 
required  only  a  Baedeker  to  fill  out  the  tableau  of  a 
continental  honeymoon. 

Lady  Hamilton  had  put  out  her  cigarette  on  en- 
tering the  white  salon,  which  vaguely  reminded  her 
of  the  Royal  Mausoleum  at  Frogmore,  and  though 
she  racked  her  canary  brain,  she  could  not  decide 
whether  the  cigarette  had  been  extinguished  in  re- 
spect to  the  Royal  family,  or  in  memory  of  a  certain 
happy  day  she  had  once  spent  there,  as  a  tripper, 
with  a  man  whom  she  would  always  believe  she 
loved  for  no  other  reason,  apparently,  but  that  she 
had  married  some  one  else. 

The  others  drifted  in  and  contributed  cheerful 
vacuities  on  the  subject  of  the  Olympians,  and  Aling- 
ham  realised  with  a  thrill  of  joy  that  British  conven- 
tion frowned  on  a  man's  making  love  to  a  woman 
before  a  room  full  of  people.  The  evil  moment  was 
again  averted.  The  affianced  pair  drifted  apart,  he 
to  talk  grouse  with  a  man,  and  she  to  spar  with 
Lady  Hamilton,  who,  like  most  ostentatiously  femi- 
nine women,  displayed  no  skill  in  argument,  or  in- 
deed in  warding  off  vicious  attacks  in  these  inglorious 
one-sided  combats,  and  who  could  only  ruffle  her 
feathers  and  peck  back  personalities. 

On  the  whole,  the  white  salon  was  not  conducive 
to  smoothly  undulating  social  intercourse;  it  was 
too  coldly  and  impersonally  eloquent  of  the  departed 
glory  of  the  Alinghams  to  promote  perfect  equanim- 
ity among  the  guests  that  were  partaking  of  the 

179 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

present  restricted  hospitality  of  the  house.  It  drove 
their  imaginations  back  to  a  past  before  which  the 
present  could  only  cringe,  mute  and  apologetic.  So 
they  strolled  away  from  the  Olympians  to  surround- 
ings that  demanded  less  in  the  way  of  sympathy  to 
their  host  than  did  the  chilling  severity  of  the  white 
salon. 

Alingham  dreaded  lest  Alice  should  hear  of  his 
engagement  through  the  medium  of  general  gossip, 
or,  indeed,  in  any  other  way  than  that  of  his  own 
telling.  He  saw  himself  softening  the  bald  announce- 
ment with  devices  old  as  Genesis;  he  did  not  mean 
to  be  theatrical,  —  the  situation  was  too  sacred  for 
stage-craft,  —  but  he  had  a  manly  faith  in  his  own 
presentation  of  a  bad  situation.  Yet  in  characteristic 
fashion  he  permitted  successive  opportunities  to  slip 
by,  while  he  alternately  cursed  his  moral  cowardice 
and  his  misfortunes. 

Already  his  mother  and  Mrs.  Gordon  were  en- 
sconced together  on  a  sofa;  the  autumnal  softness 
that  lighted  up  the  bleak  profile  of  the  older  woman 
he  interpreted  as  benign  acquiescence  in  the  confi- 
dences of  the  younger.  He  knew  that  Uncle  Regi- 
nald awaited  but  the  first  premonitory  signal  to 
proclaim  the  glad  tidings.  Moments  were  precious. 
He  rose  and  went  in  search  of  Alice. 

He  found  her  alone  in  the  grim  white  room,  ex- 
pectation written  in  every  line  of  the  lithe  young 
body.  Never  had  he  seen  her  so  pale,  and  as  the 
faint  colour  began  to  flitter  into  her  cheeks,  a  votive 
offering  to  his  presence,  she  was  like  one  of  Valdre's 
figures  in  the  frieze  slowly  flushing  into  life.  He 

1 80 


AN  IMPENDING  ANNOUNCEMENT 

saw  that  her  gown  was  white,  and  soft,  and  silken, 
with  reflected  lights  among  its  folds  like  the  cool 
shimmer  of  moonlight  on  mountain  snow;  and  that 
her  russet  gold  hair  caught  the  light  from  the  crys- 
tal lustre  and  returned  it  in  a  flash.  She  seemed 
to  fill  the  room  with  a  holy  radiance  that  to  him 
was  like  a  benediction.  She  had  the  poetry  of  dead 
legends.  She  might  have  been  a  snow  maiden,  a 
daughter  of  the  erl-king,  whose  heaped  up  whiteness 
woos  the  traveller  to  his  last  slumber,  and  whose 
sweetness  is  that  of  the  early  spring  flowers.  The 
pure  white  flame  of  his  passion  burned  away  the 
dross;  he  knew  at  last  the  wild  white  peace  that 
comes  from  unselfish  resignation.  Never  had  he 
been  able  to  grasp  at  it  under  the  name  of  religion. 
He  had  been  incapable  of  sacrificial  tribute  to  the 
god,  in  a  black  cap,  who  doled  out  punishment,  sen- 
tenced, and  continued  to  sentence,  that  his  divine 
justice  might  be  appeased.  He  had  turned  long  ago 
from  this  vengeful  god,  and  everything  else  in  life 
had  been  the  making  merry,  for  to-morrow  he  was 
to  die.  She  had  awakened  the  potentiality  for  better 
living,  —  had  called  forth  the  sacrifices,  the  burnt 
offerings  that  the  hanging  judge  had  never  received 
from  him.  And  yet  the  irony  of  offering  to  the 
shrine  of  her  who  should  have  been  bone  of  his  bone, 
flesh  of  his  flesh,  such  pale,  cold  wraiths  of  the  soul 
she  had  awakened!  He  took  her  hand,  that  was  no 
pale,  undeveloped  fragment  of  fragile  young  lady- 
hood, but  a  hand  full  of  life  and  promises  of  eternal 
tenderness,  —  a  hand  that  would  bind  up  the  hurts 
of  a  common  day.  It  lay  contentedly  passive  in  his 

181 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

ruggeder  palm,  and  yet  he  might  not  take  it  to  have 
and  to  hold,  for  better,  —  and  best,  —  there  could 
be  no  other  reading  of  the  lines  with  her.  He  could 
not  take  it,  —  because  it  held  out  no  money  to  him, 
it  had  not  the  price  of  his  follies,  it  could  not  keep 
him  in  the  wine,  women,  and  all  the  other  neces- 
saries of  life.  Yet  in  that  brief  moment,  when  he 
confronted  the  mass  of  his  follies  rising  like  a  wall 
before  him,  —  a  wall  that  kept  him  from  her,  —  he 
had  experienced  the  keenest  anguish  of  which  his 
soul  was  capable. 

In  her  presence,  the  explanations  by  which  he  had 
hoped  to  justify  his  course  rose  up  and  mocked  him. 
His  insincerity  recoiled  like  the  backward  fling  of  a 
badly  handled  rifle.  His  weakness  expended  itself 
in  childish  blasphemy. 

"  Alice,  have  you  ever  thought  what  a  humourist 
the  god  they  give  us  to  worship  is,  what  a  practical 
joker?  He  scourges  a  man  through  the  valley  of 
death,  and  his  feet  are  cut  with  the  stones,  and  torn 
by  the  thistles,  and  he  sees  never  a  face  that  he  is 
not  glad  to  turn  from  in  the  hope  that  the  next  may 
make  the  heat  and  the  sweat  and  the  toiling  worth 
while.  But  he  does  not  find  it,  and  when  he  goes  to 
the  mouth  of  the  pit,  he  's  glad,  —  glad  to  be  done 
with  it  all,  to  slip  down  to  the  unknown  darkness,  — 
glad  to  take  his  chances  with  anything  against  life; 
and  when  he  is  on  the  quicksand  and  it 's  too  late 
to  run  back,  —  he  sees  the  face  that  makes  his  strug- 
gles but  a  memory,  just  a  bitter  memory  to  laugh 
about  and  forget  in  the  light  of  her  eyes.  And  he 
cannot  turn  back  because  the  sands  are  slipping,  and 

182 


AN  IMPENDING  ANNOUNCEMENT 

the  pit  yawns,  and  he  goes  down  to  make  room  for 
the  next  man  who  is  the  victim  of  the  next  joke. 
And  that  is  life,  by  the  merciful  dispensation  of 
providence." 

"  You  don't  mean  that."  She  slipped  from  the 
chair  to  her  knees  at  his  feet.  She  reached  up  her 
bare  white  arms  and  wound  them  around  his  neck. 
Her  mouth  quivered,  as  the  blind  god's  bow  might 
quiver  before  the  arrow  is  loosed,  —  she  kissed  him. 
"  I  do  not  know  why  you  are  troubled,  but  I  am  so 
sorry,  so  sorry." 

He  felt  her  hot  tears  on  his  hand,  and  a  moment 
later  she  had  gone. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  ANTIPODAL  ANGUISH   OF  A   MIDNIGHT 
CONFERENCE 

ALICE  had  a  curiously  vivid  impression  of 
the  externals  of  the  scene,  —  many  radiat- 
ing lights,  chill  white  figures,  and  the  pom- 
pous formality  of  the  old  furniture,  rather  than  of 
the  man  with  whom  she  was  parting. 

She  knew  now  that  it  was  all  over,  that  hence- 
forth some  invincible  barrier  would  keep  them  apart 
—  and  her  first  impulse,  like  that  of  some  small 
wounded  thing,  was  to  escape  to  cover.  There  was 
no  shame  for  the  unsought  kiss  she  had  given  him 
for  very  pity;  it  was  the  unconscious  mother  in  her 
that  had  responded  to  the  avowal  of  failure  and 
weakness.  She  had  realised  that  it  was  her  part  to 
bear  the  greater  burden  by  reason  of  her  greater 
strength.  It  was  the  mother  in  her  that  loved  him 
the  better  for  his  weakness.  But  of  this  she  was 
ignorant,  as  she  sank  beneath  the  influx  of  compel- 
ling forces. 

She  mounted  the  narrow  winding  staircase  that 
led  to  her  own  room  with  the  uncertain  nimbleness 
of  one  who  is  pursued.  With  tear-blinded  eyes  she 
groped  through  the  grateful  darkness  for  the,  little 
white  bed  and  buried  her  head  in  the  pillow,  that 

184 


A    MIDNIGHT    CONFERENCE 

no  listening  ear  might  hear  the  confession  of  her 
sobbing. 

To  her  untried  youth  it  was  the  end,  and  life 
rolled  before  her  a  grey  and  endless  perspective, 
whose  meaning  she  could  not  see.  She  was  too  in- 
experienced to  know  the  value  of  the  blessed  gift  of 
time,  —  the  all-healing  unguent,  or  of  that  cynical 
school  of  ethics  that  undertakes  to  adjust  all  heart- 
hunger  by  the  dismal  system  of  substitution.  She 
sank  beneath  the  weight  of  a  first  sorrow  that  was 
the  more  crushing  because  it  was  without  the  com- 
forting remembrance  of  other  griefs  met  and  con- 
quered, or  the  assurance  of  compensation,  or  the 
knowledge  of  greater  fulness  that  comes  to  the  tried 
soul. 

The  tragedy  of  her  youth  terrified  her:  she  was 
so  young  and  strong  it  could  not  kill  her;  she  must 
go  on  through  all  the  allotment  of  years  dying  inch 
by  inch  under  the  burden  of  it. 

Then  came  fierce  rebellion  and  the  despairing 
knowledge  that  it  availed  nothing  to  beat  against  the 
bars  of  the  inevitable.  She  had  never  been  taught  to 
pray,  nor,  indeed,  had  she  ever  felt  the  need  of  su- 
pernatural aid.  But  now  she  begged  deliverance  of 
she  knew  not  what,  sending  out  her  child's  soul  in 
frantic  appeal,  crouching  closer  as  she  felt  the  un- 
availingness  of  her  supplication  sweep  back  engulf- 
ingly.  Hours  after  the  abandonment  of  her  grief 
had  left  her  incapable  of  further  suffering,  she  knelt 
there,  grateful  for  the  darkness,  the  silence,  the  free- 
dom from  contact  with  her  kind;  dreading  the  pre- 
tence that  must  be  kept  up  lest  these  people  might 

185 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

know  she  had  given  her  best  unsought,  and  had  it 
flung  back  at  her. 

She  hastened  with  her  preparations  for  bed,  that 
she  might  pretend  sleep  and  evade  her  cousin's  cross- 
questionings  as  to  the  cause  of  her  sudden  flight. 
To-morrow  she  would  offer  the  plea  of  a  headache,  — 
comprehensive  barrier  behind  which  the  hunted  sex 
may  gain  brief  respite  from  prying  eyes  and  clack- 
ing tongues.  She  had  barely  completed  her  prepara- 
tions and  found  refuge  once  more  in  the  grateful 
darkness  when  her  ear  caught  the  swishing  rustle 
of  Mrs.  Gordon's  trailing  skirts. 

"Are  you  asleep,  dear?"  she  asked,  pausing  at 
Alice's  door;  but  the  girl  did  not  reply,  and  Mrs. 
Gordon  rustled  on  to  her  own  room,  —  an  eminently 
proper  one  for  the  chief  guest,  being  no  other  than 
the  room  which  the  august  Elizabeth  had  honoured 
with  her  presence  nearly  three  centuries  before.  But 
Mrs.  Gordon  gave  scant  attention  to  the  carven  bed 
that  had  been  pressed  by  the  limbs  of  the  great  queen, 
nor  yet  to  the  royal  signature  on  the  leaded  pane,  — 
these  things  she  already  regarded  indifferently  as  her 
property. 

The  disappointment  of  her  first  marriage,  the  bit- 
terness of  her  dependence,  the  uncertainties  of  her 
widowhood  were  all  forgotten  in  the  supreme  tri- 
umph of  the  present.  She  must  write  to  Alice's 
father ;  he  would,  of  course,  do  something  handsome, 
and  Alingham,  poor  boy,  evidently  had  none  too 
much,  —  surely  Uncle  Caspar  could  be  depended  on, 
now  that  she  was  in  a  position  to  do  so  well  by 
Alice.  She  went  to  her  desk  and  began  to  write: 

186 


A    MIDNIGHT    CONFERENCE 

DEAR  UNCLE  CASPAR, — 

You  will  be  glad,  I  know,  to  hear  of  my  engage- 
ment to  — 

She  stopped,  and  considered  critically.  "  Would 
he?"  Uncle  Caspar  had  been  the  chief  loser  when 
her  late  husband's  entanglements  had  all  but  wrecked 
the  name  that  had  been  the  equivalent  of  money  in 
the  Northwest  for  the  last  quarter  of  a  century. 
Her  own  father  had  died  penniless  of  the  shame  of 
it,  leaving  her  nothing  but  the  hope  that  his  brother 
would  "  do  the  square  thing  "  by  her.  Hence  the 
trip  to  Europe  with  Alice,  at  something  more  than  a 
munificent  salary.  What  would  Uncle  Caspar  think 
of  this  second  matrimonial  venture  with  an  English- 
man, particularly  one  who  already  had  a  reputation 
as  a  spendthrift? 

"  Would  he  provide  or  advise?  "  The  question  ill 
accorded  with  her  self-gratulatory  mood.  To-night 
she  wanted  to  enjoy  the  sensation  of  triumph  re- 
duced to  its  simplest  elements,  —  to  swell  with  it, 
as  a  soaking  sponge,  and  think  of  naught  but  the 
swelling.  She  closed  her  portfolio  and  again  began 
to  walk  with  shoulders  back  and  neck  arched,  but 
she  could  not  get  the  effect,  and  dragged  a  chair  to 
the  mirror  to  enjoy  a  little  solitary  gloating,  fall- 
ing easily  from  one  pose  to  the  other  as  she  remem- 
bered photographs  of  certain  titled  beauties. 

But  it  was  pitifully  inadequate,  this  playing  to  the 
gallery  without  a  single  god.  She  wanted  to  be  ad- 
mired, applauded,  envied, — better  an  audience  of  one 
small,  sleepy  girl  than  the  post-midnight  stillness  of 

187 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

this  old  Tudor  house.  The  situation  justified  an 
especial  toilet,  —  her  choice  was  perhaps  a  trifle  too 
conventional  for  so  painstaking  an  artist,  —  loosely 
braided  hair,  clinging  white  robe,  and  noiseless  fur 
shoes.  She  stood  in  front  of  a  pier  glass,  candle  in 
hand,  and  tried  the  effect  of  her  braids  thrown  first 
over  the  bosom,  then  back.  She  liked  the  effect  of 
her  dressing-gown  caught  up  at  the  waist  as  she  had 
seen  it  arranged  in  classic  statuary;  there  was  some 
difficulty  in  getting  just  the  proper  thing  to  secure 
it,  but  finally  the  "  confidential  toilet,"  as  she  called 
it,  was  complete,  and  with  a  final  glance  at  the  mirror 
she  went  to  Alice's  door,  and  rapped  with  increasing 
violence  till  bidden  to  enter.  She  approached  the 
bed  with  a  sort  of  floating  motion.  She  had  seen 
Ellen  Terry  float  in  the  same  fashion  in  the  sleep- 
walking scene  in  Macbeth. 

She  put  her  candle  down  on  the  little  spindle- 
legged  table  near  Alice's  bed  and,  bending  over, 
kissed  her  on  the  forehead. 

"  Were  you  ill,  dearie,  that  you  slipped  away  so 
quietly  to-night?  I  was  quite  worried  about  you." 

Alice  asured  her  that  her  indisposition  was  of  the 
slightest,  and  awaited  disclosures,  vaguely  wonder- 
ing what  such  extravagant  negligee  could  signify. 

"  My  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Gordon,  crossing  her  hands 
and  nestling  them  in  the  voluminous  folds  of  either 
opposite  sleeve,  "  I  could  not  resist  the  temptation 
of  coming  in  for  a  little  chat  with  you.  I  knew  you 
would  not  mind  my  waking  you  up.  Youngsters, 
like  you,  can  always  go  to  sleep  again,  and  I  had  to 
talk  it  all  out  to  someone  to-night." 

1 88 


A    MIDNIGHT    CONFERENCE 

"Are  we  going  away?"  Eagerly,  "Oh,  do  say 
yes,  Betty;  let's  go  to  Paris." 

"We  are  going  to  Paris  on  the  jolliest  errand; 
you  and  Maude  and  Muriel  are  all  to  have  Louis 
XIV.  frocks  alike  and  picture  hats.  Lady  Alingham 
and  I  talked  it  all  over  this  evening." 

"Picture  hats,  what  for?  —  I  don't  understand. 
Why  should  I  have  hats  like  the  Alinghams?" 

"  How  stupid  of  me !  I  quite  forgot  I  had  n't  told 
you.  Because  I  am  going  to  marry  Alingham,  and 
you  are  all  to  be  my  attendants  or  still-life  studies, 
or  whatever  widows  have.  I  am  sorry  for  your  sakes 
I  am  a  widow,  and  can't  have  you  for  out  and  out 
bridesmaids." 

'  You  are  going  to  marry  him,  —  has  he  asked 
you  ?  When  ?  How  long  ago  ?  " 

Her  voice  was  strange  and  sounded  far  off,  but 
Mrs.  Gordon  was  too  engrossed  with  her  own  affairs 
to  notice. 

"  You  don't  suppose  I  did  the  proposing,  do  you? 
He  asked  me  this  afternoon  at  the  station  waiting 
for  Dickey  Winchester's  train." 

Alice  lay  still,  and  all  thought  was  taken  from  her, 
before  realisation  grew  from  out  the  whirling  chaos. 
"  At  the  railway  station  —  Alingham  —  and  are 
you  happy  ?  " 

"  Happiness  means  different  things,  dear,  at  dif- 
ferent times.  At  your  time  of  life  it  means  every- 
thing, —  at  mine  nothing.  Do  you  think  that  sounds 
disloyal  to  Alingham?  I  do  not  mean  it  so.  Living 
is  the  death  of  expectation,  and  we  have  both  lived, 
dear;  we  are  not  like  you,  a  little  bear  with  all  its 
troubles  before  it." 

189 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

Alice  lay  still,  and  her  throat  ached  as  if  tighten- 
ing fingers  were  closing  about  it. 

"  And  shall  I  feel  like  that  some  day,  —  that  noth- 
ing matters?  " 

"If  you  are  human,  yes.  But  many  escape  the 
common  lot  because  they  live  and  have  their  being 
in  success,  in  society,  in  art.  But  the  real  woman 
in  her  wretchedness  is  always  trying  to  escape  some- 
thing, —  her  home,  her  family,  her  obligations,  —  to 
reproduce  the  typical  modern  woman  in  all  her 
agonised  perplexity.  One  should  paint  her  fleeing; 
I  am  fleeing  my  ennui  —  " 

And  still  Alice  lay  in  the  half  light  without  strength 
for  reply,  —  her  body  felt  numb,  only  the  brain  re- 
sponded to  the  call  for  suffering. 

"  Sometimes  I  have  felt,  dear,  that  you  must  think 
me  a  hard  woman,  that  I  should  at  least  have  made 
the  pretence  of  caring;  but  I  was  too  honest  to  pre- 
tend. Every  woman  must  break  her  heart  just  once, 
—  it  must  be  gone  through  with  like  those  hideous 
infant  ailments  that  wreck  so  many  little  lives  for 
no  apparent  purpose.  Every  woman  has  to  break 
her  heart  just  once,  —  the  process  is  to  her  what 
time  is  to  a  violin,  what  colour  is  to  sunset,  flavour 
to  wine.  If  she  survives  she  is  seasoned,  and  every 
other  man  is  her  amusement,  or  not,  just  as  she  wills 
it.  It  is  like  the  system  of  fagging  at  the  English 
public  schools;  she  serves  her  bitter  'prenticeship 
that  she  may  serve  a  bitterer  to  others. 

"  So  I,  you  see,  dearie,  have  had  my  little  story,  — 
so  has  Alingham,  —  so  will  you  some  day ;  only 
remember  when  it  comes  that  no  man  is  worth  it. 

190 


A    MIDNIGHT    CONFERENCE 

All  my  chatter  won't  help  you  a  bit  when  the  time 
comes.  A  more  perfect  knowledge  of  the  symptom 
never  yet  stayed  the  disease. 

"  Good-night,  dear."  She  stooped  and  kissed  her. 
The  shadowy  greyness  of  morning  found  Alice  still 
staring  at  the  darkness.  She  had  not  moved.  It 
was  as  if  a  great  stone  had  been  rolled  on  her  and 
crushed  out  life  and  youth. 


191 


CHAPTER   XXI 

UNCLE  REGINALD   EXPLAINS  BUSINESS  TO  A 
PROSPECTIVE   NIECE 

BY  luncheon,  next  day,  the  engagement  had 
been  duly  announced,  and  each  of  the  guests 
had  offered  to  Lord  Alingham  and  Mrs. 
Gordon  such  flowers  of  speech  as  the  forcing-house 
of  his  mentality  afforded.  These  tributes  had  been 
accepted  apparently  more  in  that  spirit  of  chastened 
resignation  that  accompanies  the  taking  of  funeral 
emblems,  than  the  gladsome  occasion  would  seem 
to  warrant.  At  least,  so  ran  the  bulk  of  opinion  at 
Dunstan,  where  constant  observation  of  each  step 
of  the  betrothal  had,  in  all  probability,  morbidly  sen- 
sitized the  impressions  of  the  guests. 

Uncle  Reginald  was  much  in  evidence.  While  not 
exactly  usurping  the  pivotal  position  of  the  event, 
he  bore  about  the  same  relation  to  the  romance  as 
does  the  undertaker  to  the  funeral,  —  an  indispen- 
sable master  of  ceremonies,  more  conspicuous  than 
that  to  which  he  owes  his  importance. 

The  bride  to  be,  poor  lady,  had  been  bred  to  hor- 
rors till  she  throve  upon  them,  —  a  hardy  plant  that 
seemed  to  grow  but  the  more  luxuriant  from  the  in- 
cessant lopping  and  pruning  of  a  malign  fate.  Her 

192 


REGINALD    EXPLAINS    BUSINESS 

husband's  shortcomings  and  subsequent  suicide,  fol- 
lowed closely  by  the  failure  and  death  of  her  father, 
had  given  her  a  distorted  perspective  of  life.  She 
learned  to  anticipate  it  in  headlines  —  of  the  modern 
sort  —  that  exhaust  the  possibilities  of  a  chamber  of 
horrors  in  a  single  day's  news.  If  there  were  lack- 
ing certain  elements  in  the  reception  of  the  announce- 
ment of  her  betrothal,  she  attributed  it  to  the  universal 
tragedy  of  things  rather  than  to  any  sentimental 
shortcomings  in  her  own  romance. 

Alingham  sustained  his  part  so  well  that  no  one 
accused  him  of  anything  less  common  than  the  en- 
gaging of  himself  to  an  attractive  woman  with 
money,  in  preference  to  one  without.  A  venial  sin, 
according  to  the  Dunstan  code,  and  one  from  which 
the  most  orthodox  might  well  pray  for  the  oppor- 
tunity to  be  shriven. 

He  had  grown  yellow  white,  like  tallow,  when 
Alice  had  put  her  little  cold  hand  into  his  colder  one 
with  the  wish  that  he  might  be  happy.  He  did  not 
look  at  her,  even  for  a  moment,  while  she  repeated 
the  words  convention  prompted.  The  undertow  of 
the  situation  was  too  strong  even  for  a  semblance  of 
equilibrium.  Beyond  the  girl's  trite  wish  that  they 
might  be  happy,  there  had  been  no  bandying  of  words. 
But  he  noticed,  as  she  turned  from  him,  the  tighter 
clasp  of  the  young,  soft  mouth,  and  he  knew  she  had 
served  her  woman's  novitiate. 

Uncle  Reggie  hung  about  the  "  happy  couple  "  like 
a  fly.     By  tea-time  he  had  forsworn  his  facetious 
mourning  and  paid  the  romance  the  compliment  of 
a  red  tie. 
13 


LORD   ALINGHAM,   BANKRUPT 

Some  few  days  later,  Uncle  Reginald,  as  master 
of  ceremonies,  concluded  that  the  engagement,  as  a 
purely  romantic  event,  had  had  sufficient  sentimental 
tribute,  and  that  it  was  now  high  time  to  lead  it 
gently  into  those  practical  channels  where,  through 
the  instrumentality  of  the  family  solicitor,  such 
minor  details  as  the  prospective  bride's  marriage 
portion,  his  nephew's  bankruptcy  and  consequent 
debts  could  be  fully  discussed  by  means  of  that  mer- 
cifully impersonal  language  known  as  legal.  On 
two  or  three  occasions  he  had  hinted  at  the  bleakness 
of  these  forthcoming  formalities  to  Mrs.  Gordon,  re- 
gretting that  so  charming  a  romance  could  not  be  as 
free  from  prosy  details  as  is  the  courtship  of  'Arry 
and  'Arriet. 

"  The  penalty  of  your  position,  my  dear  lady,"  he 
would  remark  in  consoling  accents;  bidding  her,  at 
the  same  time,  to  make  the  most  of  this  happy  lapse 
from  responsibility,  as  much  tedious  discussion  of 
family  affairs  was  to  come  with  the  arrival  of  Aling- 
ham's  man  of  business. 

"  Poor  Ally,  he  's  managed  his  affairs  shockin'ly, 
shockin'ly;  but  what  could  one  expect  of  so  eligible 
a  young  man  ?  No  one  but  a  prig  or  a  St.  Anthony 
could  have  withstood  his  temptations.  Really,  some- 
one ought  to  introduce  a  bill  to  protect  the  eligible 
young  man,  Mrs.  Gordon.  Foundlings,  blindmen, 
street-musicians  are  all  adequately  protected  by 
law,  but  the  hope  of  the  mothers  and  daughters  of  a 
great  nation  is  left  to  the  mercy  of  chance,  —  I  as- 
sure you  I  am  not  jesting,  my  dear  lady ;  the  matter 
needs  instant  attention.  Ally  's  come  out  of  his  wild- 

194 


REGINALD    EXPLAINS    BUSINESS 

oats  harvest  surprisingly  well  considering  his  un- 
usual advantages.  He  's  lived,  dear  Mrs.  Gordon,  but 
he 's  all  the  better  for  it.  The  man  who  marries 
without  having  had  his  little  glimpse  of  the  green- 
room is  never  quite  certain  whether  the  fairy's  wings 
are  made  of  tinsel  or  something  much  better.  His 
grandmother  said  tinsel,  and  she  really  ought  to 
know,  —  but  then  there  is  the  eternal  temptation  of 
finding  out  for  himself.  Ally  has  no  doubts  on  the 
subject.  Tinsel  offers  him  no  further  inducement 
than  the  butter-scotch  and  ginger  beer  of  an  earlier 
stage  of  development.  I  may  have  to  plead  guilty 
to  being  old-school,  dear  lady,  but  I  am  a  sincere 
advocate  of  a  complete  curriculum  of  human  experi- 
ence. The  pang  of  a  green  apple  is  better  than  a 
score  of  lectures  on  the  evils  of  orchard  robbing. 
You  are  so  thoroughly  a  woman  of  the  world,  Mrs. 
Gordon,  that  I  know  it  is  unnecessary  for  me  to 
explain  my  frankness." 

She  smiled  encouragingly;  the  point  of  view  of 
the  last  of  the  Plantagenets  always  amused  her. 

"  In  a  somewhat  varied  experience,  I  have  yet  to 
see  a  more  efficacious  means  of  leading  the  most 
obstinate  of  bachelors  into  the  straight  and  narrow 
aisle  that  leads  to  the  altar  than  by  means  of  —  of 
those  ephemeral  attempts  at  domesticity  that,  say 
what  you  will,  are  the  best  guarantee  of  a  final 
settlement." 

Mrs.  Gordon  had  much  similar  philosophy  served 
up  to  her  during  the  early  days  of  her  engagement. 
In  fact  her  prospective  uncle  never  seemed  so  entirely 
happy  as  when  expatiating  on  the  advantages  of 

195 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

marrying  a  man  who,  despite  his  youth,  was  so  dis- 
mally precocious  as  to  have  wearied  of  viciousness. 

By  this  time  Mrs.  Gordon  was  sufficiently  ac- 
quainted with  the  mental  processes  of  the  last  of  the 
Plantagenets  to  recognise  in  these  avowals  something 
in  the  nature  of  a  preface  to  disclosures  that  would 
follow  at  that  leisurely  gentleman's  discretion.  With 
him  the  circuitous  was  always  preferable  to  the  di- 
rect. To  such  an  extent  had  he  cultivated  the  habit 
of  throwing  off  the  scent,  that  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  come  to  the  point,  in  any  matter,  till  he  had 
exhausted  the  possibilities  of  circumlocution.  Under 
the  circumstances,  it  was  with  a  feeling  almost  akin 
to  satisfaction,  that  Mrs.  Gordon  grasped  from  out 
the  labyrinthal  mazes  of  Uncle  Reggie's  innuendoes 
the  one  concrete  fact  that  Dunstan  could  not  be  kept 
open,  even  on  the  most  unpretentious  scale,  for  a 
sum  less  than  thirty  thousand  pounds  a  year. 

Thirty  thousand  pounds  a  year,  and  yet  these 
people  jested  of  poverty! 

Perhaps  it  was  the  tentative  way  in  which  Reggie 
was  fitting  his  tapering  fingers  together,  —  perhaps 
it  was  mental  telepathy,  —  perhaps  it  was  the  lag- 
gardly  uprising  of  a  surprisingly  keen  intelligence 
that  had  slumbered  long  and  wilfully,  content  to 
drift  in  roseate  dreamland.  For  a  moment  she  fought 
the  hideous  truth  with  the  strength  of  a  starveling 
who  sees  his  last  crust  swept  from  him  by  some 
whimsy  of  fate.  Then  she  faced  the  inevitable  with  a 
lip  smile  and  the  pitiful  prop  of  wounded  pride. 

"  And  all  this  requires  money  —  in  large  sums  — 
for  readjustment?" 

196 


REGINALD    EXPLAINS    BUSINESS 

Reggie  fitted  his  taper  fingers  with  even  more  ex- 
quisite exactness  before  replying: 

"  My  nephew's  debts  exceed  four  hundred  thou- 
sand pounds.  We  are  most  anxious  for  him  to 
appear,  as  speedily  as  possible,  before  the  bankruptcy 
commissioner." 

To  her  stare  of  utter  bewilderment  he  replied : 

"  You  know,  of  course,  of  Ally's  bankruptcy ; 
he  was  declared  insolvent  before  he  went  to  the 
States." 

"  And  these  debts  must  be  paid,  of  course,  before 
there  is  any  question  of  settlement?" 

"  In  such  a  decided  transition  as  that  from  bach- 
elorhood to  matrimony,  it  is  —  a  —  universally  con- 
ceded to  be  a  wiser  policy,  my  dear  lady,  to  begin 
the  new  order  of  things  with  a  —  clean  slate." 

She  was  almost  comically  judicious  as  she  replied, 
"  And  the  cost  of  the  sponge  would  be  about  two 
million  dollars  ?  " 

Reggie  acquiesced  with  a  bow,  and  another  fitting 
of  finger  tips. 

"  And  Dunstan,  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars  on  a  small  scale;  the  place  in  Scotland  fifty 
thousand  dollars  to  make  it  livable,  —  broadly  speak- 
ing, three  hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year  ?  " 

"  If  it  were  well  managed,  my  dear  lady.  Ally's 
things  have  gone  to  the  dogs  on  twice  the  amount." 

There  was  a  whimsical  little  pucker  in  Mrs.  Gor- 
don's white  forehead,  —  the  distress  signal  one  sees 
in  the  face  of  a  shopper  nerved  to  stoicism  at  the 
passing  of  some  great  and  unusual  bargain. 

"  Mr.  Howard,  I  can't  afford  the  necessary  sponge 
197 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

(o  wipe  the  slate,  —  we  have  been  playing  a  game  of 
unintentional  misunderstanding.  Alingham  's  mis- 
understood the  situation,  so  have  I,  —  we  have  both 
builded  on  a  quicksand.  I  have  not  a  farthing 
beyond  the  allowance  Miss  Dean's  father  makes  me 
for  looking  after  her.  My  husband  involved  every 
sou  of  my  money;  I  am  merely  a  dependant  of  my 
uncle's.  It 's  too  bad  Alice  and  Alingham  could  not 
have  fallen  in  love.  She  will  have  more  than  five 
million  sterling  in  her  own  right." 

The  last  of  the  Plantagenets  appeared  like  a  lamp 
that  is  flickering  out  in  a  strong  wind.  He  flared  up 
wildly  two  or  three  times,  but  shed  no  light  on  the 
dismal  situation.  His  face  worked  mechanically,  like 
an  automaton,  then  dropped  without  a  word.  They 
sat  staring  at  each  other  across  the  width  of  the 
green  cloth  table  in  the  library  where  there  were  no 
books. 

Mrs.  Gordon  displayed  no  intention  of  extricating 
herself,  —  it  was  as  if  she  had  played  her  last  card 
and  sat  indifferent  to  consequences. 

"  My  dear  lady,"  repeated  Uncle  Reginald  mechani- 
cally, "  you  and  Alingham  have  my  deepest  sym- 
pathy." He  passed  his  fine  old  hand  across  his 
wrinkled  forehead  as  if  to  wrest  away  swarming 
gnats.  There  was  an  invertebrate  limpness  about 
his  entire  frame.  Nothing  seemed  to  have  with- 
stood the  crucial  moment  but  the  youthful  collar 
into  which  his  working  face  seemed  sinking. 

Mrs.  Gordon  arose. 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Howard,  I  am  so  sorry  that  you 
have  been  put  to  the  trouble  of  this  useless  explana- 

198 


REGINALD    EXPLAINS    BUSINESS 

tion  of  your  family  affairs.     I  shall  write  immedi- 
ately to  Lord  Alingham." 

He  held  open  the  door,  and  she  completed  an  exit 
that  would  have  done  credit  to  an  Empress. 


"  My  dear  boy,"  said  Uncle  Reginald,  after  the 
hideous  news  had  been  broken,  "  it 's  terrible,  but 
then  it  might  have  been  worse.  Suppose,  for  instance, 
some  mad  impulse  had  prompted  you  to  marry  this 
lady  by  special  license,  as  you  admit  having  consid- 
ered. The  catastrophe  would  then  have  been  more 
complete  than  at  present." 

His  Lordship  was  bearing  up  wonderfully.  "  If 
it  were  not  for  mother  and  the  girls  — "  he  ex- 
claimed, striding  up  and  down  the  room.  "  I  shall 
wire  Musgrove,  join  him  and  his  abominable  Cross 
and  Blackwell  bottles.  Thank  Heaven,  I  can  get 
away  from  the  gossiping  cats  — " 

"  My  dear  boy,  forgive  me  if  I  seem  cruelly  pre- 
cipitate, but  there  have  been  times  when  I  have 
thought  you  not  wholly  indifferent  to  the  charms  of 
Mrs.  Gordon's  young  cousin.  You  may  recall  —  " 

"  God  in  Heaven,  Reggie !  There  is  a  limit  even 
to  my  degradation.  Whatever  else  you  may  feel  at 
liberty  to  discuss,  spare  me  the  mention  of  Miss 
Dean." 

"  They  are  leaving  for  London  early  to-morrow. 
The  necessary  wire  has  already  been  received.  Miss 
Dean  is  to  go  to  the  Sacre  Cceur  for  a  time,  and 
Mrs.  Gordon  will  remain  in  Paris  to  be  near  her." 

"  Poor  boy,  poor  Ally !  you  might  have  been 
199 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

spared  the  infernal  plot,  —  plots  are  so  vulgar,"  said 
the  last  of  the  Plantagenets. 

"  Ring  the  bell  for  a  brandy-and-soda,  and  let 's 
thank  Heaven  there  is  something  to  avert  the  edge 
of  this  realism." 

Alingham  went  to  the  desk  and  scrawled  rapidly 
for  some  minutes,  then  handed  the  wire  to  his  uncle. 

PHILIP  EDGERLY  MUSGROVE,  Stockholm,  Sweden. 

Join  you  Tuesday.  ALINGHAM. 


2OO 


'BOOfe  CtDO —  FIVE  YEARS  LATER 

CHAPTER   XXII 

THE   "ARRIVAL"   OF  MRS.   HENNESSY 

LONDON  had  enjoyed  a  week  of  June  sun- 
shine.    Passing  cabs  were  hailed  by  walk- 
ing-sticks instead  of  the  perennial  umbrella, 
—  London  was  getting  reckless. 

An  old  gentleman  had  written  a  querulous  letter 
to  the  Times,  deprecating  the  unusual  heat  wave  then 
passing  over  the  city,  and  intimating  that  the  climate 
was  not  what  it  had  been  twenty-five  years  ago. 
The  annual  prevaricator  had  again  heard  the  fabled 
nightingale,  whose  apocryphal  warblings,  somewhere 
within  the  confines  of  Hyde  Park,  wooed  him  again 
to  print  and  reminiscent  periods.  To  the  teeming 
world  of  London  that  rides  in  'buses,  prays  with  due 
seriousness  for  the  Royal  Family,  takes  its  pleasures 
sadly,  and  thanks  Heaven  it  is  the  greatest  nation  on 
earth,  —  it  was  merely  the  spring.  To  the  august 
assemblage  of  leisurely,  well-dressed  people  who 
make  up  London  proper,  or  improper,  according  to 
one  's  point  of  view,  it  was  merely  the  Season.  The 
season  of  hopes  and  fears  to  portly  matrons  with 
fragile  wares  to  dispose  of,  ere  the  market  should  be 
closed  and  the  purchasers  supplied  and  scattered. 

201 


The  season  of  hopes  and  fears  to  the  socially  ambi- 
tious who  risked  fortunes  on  the  turn  of  a  card,  —  a 
card  stating  that  Lady  Flora  Flub-Dub  would  be  at 
home,  etc. 

The  arrival  of  such  a  card  had  received  its  due 
tribute  of  flutterings  in  a  certain  house  that  par- 
ticular June  morning;  when,  at  least,  the  sparrows 
chirped  long  and  loudly  in  default  of  the  fabled  song- 
sters heard  in  the  columns  of  the  British  press,  and 
it  was  spring,  lovely  and  tender,  for  all  the  soot  and 
grime  of  London. 

"  Listen  to  this,  Alice,"  said  the  older  of  two 
ladies  who  had  been  dawdling  over  a  late  breakfast 
in  a  charming  room,  the  windows  of  which  faced 
Park  Lane,  and  commanded  an  impressionistic  view 
of  the  Parade  on  Sunday  morning. 

"  Have  we  arrived?  "  enquired  the  younger  lady, 
showing  a  great  expanse  of  scornful  eyelid. 

"  Arrived  ?  Why,  my  dear,  we  've  barely  time  to 
straighten  our  hats.  Listen  —  "  Reads  in  theatrical 
tones  —  "  The  Duchess  of  Ventnor  at  home.  Ty- 
rolean Yodlers,  eleven  o'clock.  June  the  twenty- 
seventh." 

"  I  don't  want  to  listen,"  answered  the  lady  of  the 
fatigued  eyebrows ;  "  it  will  be  bad  enough  to  have 
to  listen  on  the  twenty-seventh.  How  we  've  slaved 
for  this  yodling!  Subscriptions  to  charities,  regular 
attendance  at  church,  and  pounds  and  pounds  to  the 
Victorian  Memorial  Fund." 

"  Duchesses  do  come  high,"  mused  the  other  lady, 
who  was  Mrs.  Terence  Hennessy,  wife  of  the  South 
African  millionaire,  but  who,  as  the  delightful  Mrs. 

202 


MRS.    HENNESSY    "ARRIVES" 

Gordon,  had  had  such  a  narrow  escape  from  marry- 
ing Arthur  Alingham,  —  but  why  quote  stale  gossip, 
when  the  lady,  either  as  Mrs.  Gordon  or  Mrs.  Hen- 
nessy,  is  entirely  capable  of  keeping  us  supplied  with 
fresh  topics  of  interest  ? 

"  Only  a  Duchess  would  dare  to  have  yodling. 
You  have  to  give  them  Melba  at  two  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds  per  evening,  —  two  songs,  one  encore. 
It  must  be  so  economical  to  be  a  Duchess,  don't  you 
think  so,  Betty?" 

"  To  return  yodling  for  Melba  does  seem  to  be 
an  excellent  example  of  British  thrift;  however, 
I  believe  lions  are  going  out,  —  everyone 's  used 
them  for  live  bait  till  they  've  palled.  The  success- 
ful hostess  has  got  to  think  of  something  new." 

"  Why  not  have  tigers  ?  —  begin  with  Mr.  Croker, 
at  present  in  Wantage  —  other  Tammanyites  might 
be  induced  to  emigrate  —  why  not  have  a  tiger 
salon?" 

Again  Mrs.  Hennessy  mused  for  a  while :  "  Bet- 
ter one  Tammany  salon  in  London  doing  society, 
than  nine-and-ninety  Tammany  saloons  in  New  York 
doing  a  rushing  business.  Why,  Alice  Dean,  is  n't 
that  a  letter  from  Gilchrist  lying  by  your  plate,  and 
not  even  opened  ?  " 

The  younger  lady  lifted  up  a  dish  cover  with 
mournful  solemnity,  and  placed  it  over  the  unopened 
letter.  She  did  it  with  the  air  of  one  concluding  a 
funeral  rite. 

"  Poor  Gilchrist,  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it? 
—  such  a  nice  old  title,  too." 

"  You  speak  as  if  I  were  making  a  collection  of  old 
203 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

titles,  Betty ;  "  and  there  was  a  trifle  more  eyelid  in 
evidence. 

"  You  ought  not  to  treat  him  like  that.  Do,  please, 
Alice,  ring  the  bell  and  let 's  try  to  get  a  bit  of  hot 
toast ;  cold  toast  is  as  prevalent  in  England  as  —  the 
Garter  motto.  But,  as  I  was  saying,  poor  Gilchrist 
simply  devours  you  with  his  eyes.  —  Preston,  some 
hot  toast;  be  sure  it 's  hot." 

Alice  smiled  indulgently.  "  My  dear  girl,  your 
demands  for  toast  and  your  plea  for  the  Earl  of  Gil- 
christ are  so  curiously  interwoven  that  I  am  con- 
fused." 

"  I  said  Gilchrist  devoured  you  with  his  eyes." 

"  It 's  a  way  they  have,  my  dear,  a  mere  social 
usage,  like  bowing  or  lifting  their  hats.  I  'd  be  the 
last  to  interfere  with  their  pretty  ways." 

"  You  will  have  to  marry  sooner  or  later,  my  dear 
girl.  This  Sister  of  St.  John  business  that  you  talk 
about  is  absurd,  —  you  are  a  little  tired,  and  the  grey 
habits  and  dim  chapel  seem  restful,  that 's  all.  It 
doesn't  mean  anything,  really;  I've  felt  that  way 
myself,  scores  of  times." 

"  But  you  invariably  decided  in  favour  of  matri- 
mony," tossed  off  Alice. 

Mrs.  Hennessy's  brow  clouded  for  a  moment,  but 
she  said  with  perfect  good-humour,  "  Matrimony  al- 
ways seemed  a  more  human  sacrament  than  holy 
orders  —  and  —  I  'm  very  human." 

"  The  difference  between  marrying  and  staying 
single,"  and  Miss  Dean  assumed  the  gravity  requi- 
site to  settling  the  vexed  question  for  all  time,  "  is 
the  choice  between  dining  table  d'hote  or  d  la  carte. 

204 


MRS.    HENNESSY    "ARRIVES" 

At  table  d'hote  you  take  what 's  coming,  that  is  matri- 
mony —  irrevocable,  indissoluble,  binding,  and  —  as 
many  synonyms  as  you  please.  A  la  carte  permits 
of  a  greater  choice,  more  solitude  for  reflection,  but  — 
among  other  advantages  —  you  don't  have  to  wait 
for  coffee.  If  you  don't  want  coffee,  you  can  push 
your  chair  from  the  table  and  go  your  way." 

;<  You  can  afford  spinsterhood,  my  dear ;  it 's  one 
of  the  few  prerogatives  of  the  wealthy  woman.  Poor 
women  have  to  marry,  willy-nilly  —  and  that 's  what 
he  is  usually  —  to  prove  they  've  had  the  chance ;  no 
one  would  believe  it  otherwise.  —  Good  gracious,  is 
this  Thursday  ?  and  I  've  four  gowns  to  be  fitted  at 
eleven.  Alice,  what  made  you  let  me  run  on  like 
this  ?  "  There  was  little  of  Delsarte's  theories  visible 
in  the  manner  in  which  Mrs.  Hennessy  left  the  room. 

The  years  that  had  brought  to  the  former  Mrs. 
Gordon  the  welcome  transition  from  penniless  de- 
pendence to  practical  social  security  had  dealt  kindly 
with  her.  She  had  mellowed  in  the  process,  like 
wine  kept  in  a  cosey  cellar.  Her  glance  was  more 
steadfast;  her  rapid  movements,  that  had  not  been 
without  a  suggestion  of  anxiety,  had  settled  into 
a  self-satisfied  languor,  enviously  interpreted  as  the 
equivalent  of  British  repose  by  the  ladies  of  the  Amer- 
ican colony  in  London.  The  congenial  exercise  of 
writing  checks  agreed  with  her;  there  were  fewer 
hollows  about  her  throat  than  when  the  Fates  played 
her  so  scurvy  a  trick  at  Dunstan.  She  could  dispense 
with  a  few  pearls  in  her  necklace  at  dinner. 

Miss  Dean  looked  her  age  with  perhaps  the  accu- 
mulated interest  of  a  year  or  two.  Not  that  her  eyes 

205 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

wore  sinister  crescents,  nor  her  cheeks  the  pallid  livery 
of  romance;  she  would  have  fought  such  attributes 
gallantly.  Perhaps  it  was  the  ability  to  fight  them 
that  infused  an  indefinable  flavour  into  her  personal- 
ity. In  her  robust  slenderness  she  looked  the  typical 
modern  Diana,  who  sees  in  life  many  targets  worth 
her  arrows,  and  who  rejoices  in  a  good  aim  and  a  full 
quiver ;  but  she  was  clearly  a  Diana  who  cherished  no 
illusions  regarding  the  spoils.  You  read  that  in  the 
half-amused,  half-ironical  glance  that  flashed  up  at 
you  from  eyes  that  had  lowered  their  lids  and  reserved 
much  of  their  wealth  of  expression.  She  tilted  at  life 
with  her  visor  down,  and  had  acquired  considerable 
coolness  and  skill  in  handling  her  weapons.  Of  that 
eerie  quality  that  was  too  intangible  for  actual  beauty, 
and  was  perhaps  but  an  illusion  of  fly-about  tawny 
hair  and  absolutely  simple  modelling,  not  a  suggestion 
remained.  It  had  gone  like  the  early  morning  dew  on 
a  peach,  when  the  delicate  fruit  has  been  exposed  over- 
long  to  the  glare.  In  appearance  she  was  modern 
almost  to  the  verge  of  caricature.  The  tawny  hair  no 
longer  blew  about  her  face  in  appealing  tendrils;  it 
was  twisted  into  a  wonderful  structure  that  suggested 
crimping-pins,  the  coiffeur's  "  art,"  and  the  ladies  of 
the  Royal  Family.  The  smiling  reserve  perpetually 
at  the  corners  of  her  mouth  lightened  or  deepened  as 
the  passing  panoramas  proved  dull  or  amusing  — 
laughter  or  tears  were  too  hearty  a  tribute  for  so  toler- 
ant an  observer.  All  London  knew  of  her  as  a  great 
heiress.  The  fatal  blunder  of  the  house  of  Alingham 
did  not  promise  to  be  repeated.  There  was  hardly  a 
week  that  the  American  papers  failed  to  print  an  ac- 

206 


MRS.    HENNESSY    "ARRIVES" 

count  of  her  alleged  engagement  to  one  title  or  an- 
other; but  Alice  Dean  continued  to  remain  the  hope 
and  despair  of  those  bachelors  to  whom  marriage 
means  the  legal  appropriation  of  moneys  by  the  sanc- 
tion of  Holy  Writ. 

Mrs.  Hennessy,  whose  cordial  reception  by  the 
remotely  exclusive  since  her  marriage  had  inclined 
her  if  possible  to  a  less  lenient  view  of  her  fellow- 
creatures,  used  to  say: 

"  If  a  man  does  not  propose  to  Alice  within  a  week 
of  his  introduction,  it 's  safe  to  congratulate  him  on 
his  own  engagement." 

And  doubtless  that  was  Miss  Dean's  most  plausible 
excuse  for  remaining  single.  In  a  country  in  which 
all  the  roads  are  sign-marked  as  leading  to  Rome,  a 
high-spirited  girl  might  be  expected  to  seek  some 
less  frequented  highway.  The  Alingham  episode  had 
been  resolutely  thrust  back  in  that  Blue-beard  chamber 
of  sinister  experience  that  she  had  happened  on 
through  innocence  rather  than  the  curiosity  which 
prompts  ladies  of  maturer  observation  to  fit  chance 
locks  with  ever  convenient  keys. 

In  those  first  haggard  days  of  rebellious  bending  to 
the  yoke  of  the  inevitable,  she  might  have  failed  ut- 
terly but  for  that  quivering,  wounded  pride  that  cried 
out  to  her  for  screening  shelter  louder  than  her  own 
heart-break.  After  their  parting,  her  life  revealed 
bare,  withered  patches,  like  a  forest  over  which  a  de- 
vastating fire  has  swept,  leaving  the  blackened  tree- 
trunks  to  bear  aloft  dead  branches,  apparently  for  no 
other  reason  but  that  of  grimly  illustrating  one  of 
fate's  most  ruthless  acts  of  vandalism.  She  came 

207 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

from  the  ordeal  withered  to  the  core  by  the  blight  of 
indifference.  It  was  not  only  her  inability  to  give  the 
smallest  atom  of  affection,  but  she  could  no  longer 
take  such  gift  in  simple  faith.  In  that  first  fearless 
giving  of  the  treasures  of  youth,  the  largess  of 
love  had  been  poured  into  a  sieve.  Their  value 
and  her  own  lavish  waste  she  was  tardy  in  rec- 
ognising, but  she  was  not  the  woman  for  prudent 
pros  and  cons,  when  love  was  at  the  bar.  You  read 
that  in  the  ripple  of  her  mouth  and  the  quick  kindling 
of  the  eye.  Neither  was  she  a  woman  to  require 
the  same  lesson  twice.  Hence  the  highly  interesting 
Miss  Dean  of  several  London  seasons. 

Her  attitude  of  brilliant  aloofness  was  not  without 
its  peculiar  charm  to  men  who  saw  in  her  indifference 
a  challenge  to  their  strategic  powers,  added  to  the  zest 
of  conquest  and  the  glory  of  spoils. 

Nor  was  she  beyond  the  wanton  sport  of  throwing 
tempting  crumbs  to  those  tame  birds  of  prey  that  have 
their  feeding  ground  in  the  London  season,  —  a  bit 
here,  a  bit  there,  to  the  shyer  members  of  the  flock  as 
a  "  come-on ;  "  nothing  to  the  bolder  ones  who  flour- 
ished without  such  gentle  encouraging;  then,  splen- 
did impartiality,  double-handfuls  for  all,  till  the  last 
crumb  is  dusted  away,  and  the  lady  bountiful  is  off 
in  search  of  fresher  amusement. 

As  likely  as  not  she  will  look  for  it  at  Monte  Carlo ; 
she  loved  to  feel  her  pulse  quicken  with  the  tension 
that  was  as  much  a  quality  of  the  air  as  its  southern 
softness.  And  she  forgot  racking  introspection  in 
seeing  the  greed-transformed  faces  growing  grey  with 
the  sudden  sweeping-away  of  hope,  or  the  exultant 

208 


MRS.    HENNESSY    "ARRIVES" 

flush  at  the  temples,  the  extended  hand,  greedy,  claw- 
like,  in  its  lust  to  clutch  the  spoils ;  and  the  Russians 
who  gambled  like  Sphinxes,  and  the  Jews  who  gam- 
bled as  if  their  mournful  souls  were  on  the  green 
cloth ;  and  the  croupiers  with  their  monotonous  dron- 
ing, and  the  mild  old  ladies  with  systems.  I  blush  to 
say  it  —  but  she  loved  Monte  Carlo.  She  never  com- 
bated the  temptation  of  risking  her  next  quarter's 
allowance,  indifferent  alike  whether  she  lost  or  won 
the  stake;  she  played  for  a  little  quickening  of  the 
pulse,  a  momentary  throb  of  something  that  was  not 
the  foreordained  dulness,  in  which  her  youth  seemed 
going  down  like  a  swimmer  in  a  drowning  clutch. 
Her  wit  sometimes  had  the  saltness  of  brine,  and 
the  corroding  cynicism  of  her  maxims  the  flavour 
of  spoiled  sentiment.  This  was  the  mask  she  took 
refuge  behind  when  her  lip  quivered  and  her  eyes 
were  dimmed  with  tears.  But  the  world  saw  only 
the  mask  —  it  judged  her  a  hard  young  woman, 
and  she  was  thankful  for  the  false  judgment. 

When  Philip  Edgerly  Musgrove,  commonly  called 
"  Jimmy,"  with  whom  Lord  Alingham  sailed  on  the 
Polar  expedition,  in  which  nothing  had  been  discov- 
ered, returned  to  England  with  little  more  than  a 
budget  of  good  stories  and  some  valuable  furs,  he 
answered  all  inquiries  regarding  the  whereabouts  of 
Alingham  with,  "  He  stepped  off  somewhere  in 
Alaska  —  yes,  I  think  it  was  Alaska.  He  '11  turn  up 
some  day."  And  everyone  was  content  with  the 
meagre  information.  In  fact,  Alaska  was  considered 
an  excellent  place  for  a  bankrupt  to  "  step  off."  His 
world  had  managed  to  get  on  without  him.  Other 
H  209 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

bankrupts  claimed  the  ephemeral  sympathy  or  illus- 
trated the  parental  homilies  to  the  son  of  the  house : 
the  utilitarian  purpose  of  the  bankrupt  is  restricted. 
Alingham  was  dead  as  Pharaoh.  And  this  was  all 
that  Alice  Dean  had  heard  of  him  since  they  parted 
at  Dunstan. 

Alice  had  forgotten  him.  In  her  life  he  had 
dwindled  to  the  vanishing  point ;  yet  the  bitter  recol- 
lection of  that  which  he  had  evoked,  the  essence  of 
heart  and  soul  and  brain,  the  waking  and  sleeping 
thought  of  him,  —  these  were  memories  bitten 
deep  as  the  etcher's  acid  bites  the  plate,  and  she  re- 
coiled from  the  thought  of  loving,  because  she  had 
loved  much.  She  was  not  wilfully  hard,  nor  con- 
sciously morbid,  but  she  recognised  the  iron  with 
which  her  youth  had  been  branded,  and  it  did  not  seem 
a  pretty  toy  to  tie  a  ribbon  to  and  play  with. 

With  unaccountable  indifference  to  imminent  social 
opportunities,  Alice  had  gone  to  Devonshire,  the  week 
after  the  arrival  of  the  Duchess  of  Ventnor's  card,  to 
visit  the  daughter  of  a  country  parson,  for  whose  ex- 
cessive worthiness  she  had  lately  developed  a  great 
fondness.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  season  she  had 
swung,  restless  as  a  pendulum,  between  the  asceticism 
of  the  Reverend  John  Colton's  household  and  the  fri- 
volities of  London.  A  week  of  early  breakfasts, 
mothers'  meetings,  and  church  politics  would  be  suc- 
ceeded by  days  in  which  many  social  engagements 
had  to  be  fitted  with  the  exactness  of  puzzles.  It  was 
while  she  was  under  the  austere  influence  of  Margaret 
Colton  that  she  thought  of  entering  the  Sisterhood  of 
St.  John,  a  nursing  sisterhood  whose  conventual  rule 

210 


MRS.    HENNESSY    "ARRIVES" 

bound  the  lives  of  many  of  the  ladies  of  the  nobility. 
Alice  fancied  that  she  had  a  real  vocation  for  the  aus- 
terities of  Good  Hope  House,  and  enlisted  the  sym- 
pathy of  the  clergyman's  daughter  in  her  behalf, 
Margaret  shyly  confessing  that  inclination  led  her  also 
in  search  of  the  peace  that  the  world  could  not  give, 
but  that  to  yield  to  the  temptation  in  her  case  would 
be  weakly  self-indulgent,  as  innumerable  duties  bound 
her  to  the  rectory.  They  had  many  exalted  moments 
during  these  days,  Margaret  piously  envying  Alice 
her  freedom  of  choice,  Alice  confiding  that  she 
feared  her  father's  bitter  objection  tp  the  Sisterhood. 

Margaret's  sympathy  suffered  a  rude  shock  one  day 
when  she  entered  Alice's  room  and  found  the  pro- 
spective novice  pinning  handkerchiefs  and  a  black 
shawl  about  her  head  to  see  if  the  habit  was  becoming. 
Alice,  all  unconscious  of  the  desecration,  wheeled 
about  from  the  mirror  with : 

"  How  do  I  look,  Margaret  ?  " 

Margaret  smiled  in  pained  exaltation,  as  a  martyr 
at  the  stake. 

"  Your  own  pretty  hair  is  much  more  becom- 
ing, dear ; "  and  she  removed  the  handkerchief  and 
shawl.  Nor  would  the  rector's  daughter  again  dis- 
cuss the  advisability  of  Alice's  entering  the  Sisterhood 
of  St.  John.  She  would  deftly  turn  the  talk  if  it 
veered  in  that  direction,  and  Alice  felt  small  and 
reproved. 

Margaret  was  even  more  sympathetic  over  the  hol- 
lowness  of  the  world  than  before;  but  Alice  felt  that 
the  quality  of  her  sympathy  had  suffered  a  change. 
Never  were  they  again  on  that  lofty  plane  of  yearn- 

211 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

ing:  Margaret  inclined  to  her  as  a  dignified  ecclesi- 
astic; Alice  unconsciously  found  herself  playing  the 
role  of  restless  parishioner,  eager  for  she  knew  not 
what.  Suddenly  she  remembered  a  pink  and  gold 
frock  that  she  had  never  worn.  It  was  a  very  lovely 
gown,  and  had  come  from  the  couturiere's  several 
days  ago.  She  bade  a  hurried  adieu  to  Margaret, 
and  returned  to  London  by  the  next  train. 

It  was  nine  o'clock  when  Alice  reached  the  station. 
She  had  neglected  to  wire  Betty  of  her  arrival, 
and  there  was  no  one  to  meet  her.  She  knew  that 
in  all  probability  Mrs.  Hennessy  would  be  deeply 
annoyed.  Betty  considered  it  "  very  American " 
for  a  young  woman  to  arrive  or  depart  from  a 
railroad  station  unaccompanied.  Attendance  for  the 
young  person,  under  all  circumstances,  was  the  first 
article  of  Mrs.  Hennessy's  faith.  The  cab  whirled 
rapidly  through  the  blurring  fog;  the  lights  in  the 
buildings  burned  in  long  yellowish  lines,  like  splashes 
of  water-colour  roughly  applied  to  the  paper.  Alice 
wondered  about  the  lives  of  the  people  in  the  houses 
they  were  passing.  Were  they  happy  ?  Was  it  some 
deficiency  within  herself  that  prevented  her  from  get- 
ting more  out  of  life  ?  She  felt  she  must  fight  against 
these  thoughts.  She  was  getting  too  narrowly  intro- 
spective. Perhaps  Betty,  not  expecting  her,  would 
have  gone  out,  in  which  case  Alice  would  have  to 
spend  a  dreary  evening  at  home.  She  put  her  hand 
up  through  the  window  in  the  roof  and  told  the  cab- 
man to  hurry,  promising  him  an  extra  shilling  if  he 
made  good  time,  and  under  a  swing  of  the  whip  the 
horse  started  off  at  a  rocking  gallop. 

212 


MRS.    HENNESSY    "ARRIVES" 

Mrs.  Hennessy,  a  miracle  of  the  works  and  pomps 
of  Bond  Street,  had  left  the  house  a  few  minutes  be- 
fore Alice's  arrival. 

"  Had  Mr.  Hennessy  gone  with  her?  " 

"  He  had,  Miss." 

She  resigned  herself,  with  ill  grace,  to  a  melancholy 
evening.  It  was  easier  to  yield  to  the  imp  of  unquiet- 
ness  that  possessed  her  than  to  compose  herself  by 
reading  or  calm  reflection.  Without  removing  her 
hat  or  jacket  she  began  to  walk  up  and  down  the  long 
drawing-room,  over  the  time-mellowed  Aubusson  car- 
pet that  was  but  a  detail  of  the  general  extravagant 
simplicity.  There  was  a  Watteau  on  the  wall  where 
all  the  bonbonniere  gentlemen  smiled  with  mock  def- 
erence at  the  bonbonniere  ladies  who  accepted  this 
mimic  obeisance  with  smiling  reserve.  How  like  the 
season  it  was!  The  season  was  the  Watteau  gown 
dull  and  haggard ;  the  satin  coats  of  the  gentlemen  had 
turned  black,  the  ladies  had  grown  a  trifle  worn  and 
wrinkled  from  much  smiling  —  but  the  tableau 
was  still  the  same.  There  was  a  Romney,  too,  in  the 
drawing-room,  —  a  portrait  of  a  lady  in  white,  with 
a  sweetly  grave  mouth  and  eyes  that  were  deep  wells 
of  tenderness.  She  had  doubtless  been  stripped  from 
the  panelling  of  some  old  house.  Some  one's  ances- 
tress gone  to  pay  the  debts  of  the  prodigal  heir.  She 
was  their  ancestress  now,  —  and  Alice  blushed  as 
she  looked  up  at  the  white  lady.  They  —  the  Hen- 
nessys  and  Deans  —  belonged  to  that  splendid  aris- 
tocracy of  money,  the  aristocracy  that  acquires  its 
ancestors  in  a  night.  Aladdin's  lamp  would  make 
fine  quarterings  for  them;  Aladdin's  lamp  on  a 
dollar  rampant. 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

Alice  continued  her  walk  up  and  down  the  beauti- 
ful room,  with  its  Sheraton  sofa  of  satinwood  inlaid 
with  delicate  tracery  and  its  Chippendale  cabinets. 
The  old  furniture  exhaled  a  tender  melancholy; 
money  could  buy  even  the  subtle  aroma  of  romance. 
How  skilfully  the  trail  of  the  dollar  had  been  con- 
cealed! Yet  it  was  there,  omnipresent.  How  easily 
they  had  wrapped  themselves  in  this  luxury !  It  was 
like  a  satin-lined  garment  that  slipped  on  easily, 
and  covered  much.  But  the  satin-lined  garment  was 
getting  a  bit  monotonous  for  daily  wear.  When  one 
wore  it,  one  always  met  the  same  people,  —  smiling 
ladies  with  charming  voices  and  hair  dressed  like 
Queen  Alexandra,  slightly  vacuous  gentlemen  with 
expressions  of  self-satisfied  boredom.  She  felt  as  if 
she  were  shutting  up  her  soul  in  a  fortress  of  her  own 
building,  —  a  stone  here,  a  bar  there,  and  soon  the 
prison  would  be  complete.  Yet  she  dared  not  stop 
putting  stone  on  stone,  —  it  was  preferable  to  idle- 
ness, —  and  there  seemed  no  alternative.  She  longed 
for  the  courage  to  rebel,  the  courage  to  stop  doing 
empty,  foolish  things  that  only  complicated  life.  But 
how  or  where  was  she  to  begin? 


214 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

A  CHANCE  SAMARITAN 

LIKE  the  sound  of  the  sea  from  a  shell,  the 
dull  roar  of  the  city  came  to  her  murmur- 
ously.  London's  great  orchestra  was  tuning 
up  its  instruments  for  the  night's  symphony.  Across 
the  slowly  moving  volume  of  sound,  her  ear  detected 
a  melancholy  motive,  —  a  great  wave  of  desolation 
that  surged  and  beat  up  from  the  city  like  grief  that 
is  beyond  tears,  —  the  woe  of  existence,  singing  its 
chant  into  the  symphony  of  the  city. 

The  uncouth  music,  throbbing  with  life,  stirred 
her  till  the  house  seemed  to  contract  in  its  efforts  to 
expel  her  into  the  clamouring  babel.  Above  the 
tumult  she  seemed  to  hear  one  small  voice,  fright- 
ened as  a  child  in  the  dark,  calling  to  her  for  help. 
She  leaned  far  out  of  the  window;  the  night  was 
blue  and  softly  blurred;  through  the  light  drizzling 
rain  the  lights  burned  dull  yellow,  like  the  golden 
ornaments  the  Etruscans  fashioned. 

Again  she  heard  the  cry,  and  now  it  had  a  desper- 
ate note  that  called  to  her  woman's  mercy  to  hasten. 
Yet  she  shrank  in  terror  from  the  streets,  the  crowd, 
and  all  the  gaunt  spectres  of  the  London  night.  She 
turned  from  the  window  impatiently.  It  was  only 
a  fancy,  a  morbid  fancy;  this  clammy,  unhealthful 

215 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

depression  must  be  shaken  off.  But  again  it  came, 
distinct,  actual,  as  if  it  had  been  in  the  room  with 
her,  but  now  so  faintly  feeble  that  it  seemed  but 
a  moan.  She  was  no  longer  mistress  of  herself; 
something  stronger  than  her  terror  of  the  night, 
the  streets,  was  sending  her  forth.  She  had  no  will, 
but  was  as  one  who  falls  shudderingly  through  the 
dark  abysses  of  sleep. 

The  jarring  of  the  front  door  as  it  closed  behind 
her  startled  Alice  back  to  clear-headed  consciousness 
for  a  moment,  so  that  she  stood  looking  at  it,  amazed 
at  her  own  plight.  Then  above  the  hoarse  crescendo 
of  conflicting  sounds  that  dinned  its  discord  with 
many  repetitions,  she  heard  the  voice  faintly  be- 
seeching. And  this  time  she  hesitated  no  longer, 
but  went  down  the  quiet  street  without  turning  to 
the  left  or  right.  She  followed  the  lights  as  resist- 
lessly  as  a  hypnotic  subject  turns  toward  the  bril- 
liant object  that,  for  the  time,  controls  his  brain. 

With  the  nimbleness  of  a  somnambulist  she 
threaded  her  way  among  the  hansoms,  the  lumber- 
ing omnibuses,  the  skurrying  crowds  that  poured 
from  theatres  and  music-halls  and  were  swallowed  up 
in  the  congested  currents  of  humanity  making  their 
way  along  the  pavements.  The  lights  were  multiply- 
ing, the  streets  were  full  of  the  chill  blue  glitter  of  in- 
numerable sparks  of  electricity.  All  the  instruments 
in  the  London  orchestra  crashed  fortissimo.  The 
symphony  of  the  city  had  not  a  note  of  music  now; 
it  beat  at  the  brain,  a  meaningless  din. 

She  seemed  to  have  been  caught  on  the  outer  edge 
of  a  whirlpool,  that  slowly  and  deliberately  —  with- 

216 


A    CHANCE    SAMARITAN 

out  effort  or  volition  on  her  part  —  carried  her  to 
a  certain  destination.  The  cry  grew  stronger;  she 
could  make  it  out  now :  a  woman's  voice,  weak  with 
illness  and  suffering.  Her  consciousness,  that  had 
been  like  a  paralysed  thing,  began  to  stir;  she  could 
feel  the  pavements  beneath  her  feet;  the  buildings 
were  no  longer  the  fantastic  structures  of  a  dream; 
and  then,  with  a  flash  of  shuddering  self -conscious- 
ness, she  realised  she  was  walking  along  Piccadilly 
Circus  alone,  and  it  was  past  midnight. 

London's  midnight  output  claimed  every  inch  of 
the  narrow  pavement.  The  respectable  and  the  dis- 
reputable were  herded  together  as  one  flock;  the 
British  family,  estimable,  dull,  exemplified  by  the  stout 
matron,  the  red-faced  father,  the  daughters  with  their 
marvellous  complexions,  complacently  elbowed  their 
way  in  quest  of  the  'Ammersmith  bus,  through  a 
mob  of  prostitutes.  The  frog-faced  continental,  who 
is  as  much  a  part  of  Piccadilly  as  its  pavement, 
twirled  his  mustachios  in  front  of  the  St.  James. 

The  crowds  flitted  by,  some  dull  and  homely,  some 
sinister  and  menacing,  like  faces  in  an  evil  dream. 
The  rouge  bloomed  strangely  on  the  haggard  coun- 
tenances of  the  sisterhood  of  the  streets,  some  of 
whom  wore  the  grey  weariness  of  dawn,  and  some- 
times despair  looked  behind  the  stereotyped  laughter 
in  their  eyes,  like  a  second  face  at  a  window.  Their 
hats,  crowned  with  towering  bunches  of  flowers,  — 
concessions  to  the  spring,  —  were  matted  into  damp, 
pulpy  masses,  and  their  skirts  swished  disconsolately 
in  the  mud.  It  was  sin  shorn  of  every  illusion,  — 
sin  told  in  the  dull  prose  of  a  municipal  report. 

217 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

They  walked  tentatively,  with  staring  faces  and 
free-lance  eyes,  their  clothes  clamorous,  their  faces 
daubed  vermilion  and  sometimes  white,  —  leper 
white,  —  and  Alice  realised  that  these  were  the  out- 
cast women  of  whom  she  had  but  vaguely  heard,  — 
the  women  who  are  born  to  sing  the  chorus  of  de- 
spair in  the  symphony  of  the  city.  The  knowledge 
rose  to  her  lips  with  the  bitterness  of  a  salt  wave. 
Oh,  the  pity  of  it!  and  her  heart  went  out  to  these 
poisoned  blossoms  of  the  London  night.  What  had 
brought  her  out?  Was  it  one  of  these  women  who 
had  called,  whose  cry  had  reached  her  above  the 
tumult  of  London? 

Then  she  noticed  that  immediately  in  front  of  her 
a  girl  dropped  out  of  the  dismal  pageant,  clutched  at 
a  barred  shutter,  and  coughed  convulsively,  —  the 
spasmodic  paroxysms  that  are  nature's  last  gasping 
protest  at  the  tightening  fingers  of  death  on  a  throat. 
She  saw  the  girl  hold  her  skirts  aside,  that  the  tawdry 
livery  of  the  streets  might  not  be  despoiled  by  the 
blood  that  spurted  from  the  painted  mouth.  She 
tugged  at  her  red  skirts  with  a  rigid  hand,  holding 
them  well  away  with  a  determined  grasp  that  sug- 
gested the  petty  tradesman  saving  his  small  stock  in 
the  face  of  desperate  chances.  What  was  life's  blood 
when  her  only  dress  was  at  stake,  the  red  dress  and 
all  that  depended  on  it? 

The  night  moths  circled  by,  with  eyes  glazed  and 
dull  by  much  staring;  of  their  charity  they  gave  the 
girl  a  generous  allowance  of  the  pavement;  there 
was  other  business  afoot  in  Piccadilly  besides  that 
of  Samaritanism.  The  blood  continued  to  flow,  till 

218 


A    CHANCE   SAMARITAN 

the  strength  in  the  rigid  arm  was  spent  and  the  red 
skirt  went  the  way  of  many  a  cherished  thing.  In 
her  struggles  for  breath,  the  girl  even  regarded  its 
fate  with  indifference,  and  leant  back  against  the 
closed  shutter,  unconscious  of  the  blurring  wetness 
of  the  night,  the  flitting  human  swarm.  She  was 
exhausted,  —  the  closed  shutter  of  the  shop  afforded 
a  momentary  prop,  and  with  the  grim  philosophy  of 
the  streets,  she  made  the  most  of  it. 

Alice  knew,  in  a  flash  of  immediate  cognition, 
that  she  had  found  the  one  of  whom  she  had  come 
in  quest,  the  one  in  all  London,  in  all  the  world, 
perhaps,  who  needed  what  she  had  to  give.  It  had 
been  this  woman's  voice,  thin  with  suffering,  that 
had  found  its  way  to  Alice's  heart,  and  made  it  sen- 
sible of  something  beside  its  own  ache. 

Nor  had  its  cry  the  abject  note  of  mendicancy;  it 
offered  help  for  help;  it  asked  and  it  promised  to 
Alice,  foundering  in  a  sea  of  self,  relief  from  that 
painful  inturning  of  thought  that  is  so  perilous. 
She  went  to  the  assistance  of  the  night  moth  that 
had  nearly  fluttered  out  its  little  span ;  and  there  was 
in  her  heart  no  pharisaical  thankfulness  for  her  own 
goodness. 

She  slipped  her  arm  about  the  girl's  waist,  she 
wiped  the  stained  gown  with  her  cambric  handker- 
chief, she  spoke  to  her  words  of  sisterly  cheer.  And 
when  the  girl  opened  her  eyes  and  smiled,  Alice  saw 
that  she  was  pretty,  and  that  the  pitifully  crude 
clothes  sat  ill  on  her,  as  a  child  who  dresses  himself 
in  the  attic's  spoils  and  plays  a  part  he  does  not 
understand. 

219 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

"Where  do  you  live?" 

The  girl  gave  the  number  of  a  house  in  Maryle- 
bone  Road ;  Alice  beckoned  a  passing  hansom,  helped 
her  in,  slipped  in  beside  her,  and  told  the  cabman 
where  to  drive. 

The  incident  had  created  no  ripple  of  interest  on 
the  surface  of  Piccadilly ;  each  swarming  night  thing 
had  business  of  its  own.  It  is  there,  as  it  is  in  the 
thickly  multiplying  life  of  a  noisome  pool;  when 
one  of  the  darting  swarm  goes  down,  there  is  one 
more  chance  for  the  survivors,  and  there  are  many 
swarming  things  with  life  to  fight  for  in  Piccadilly 
and  the  pool. 

Alice  never  gave  a  passing  thought  to  the  equivocal 
position  in  which  she  was  placing  herself  by  being 
alone  on  Piccadilly  at  midnight,  by  entering  a  cab 
with  a  painted  woman  of  the  streets.  If  you  had 
remonstrated  with  her  as  she  whirled  along  with  the 
night  moth,  she  would  have  answered  you,  with  a 
fine  uplifting  of  the  chin,  — 

"  And  pray  of  what  use  is  my  respectability  if  I 
may  not  help  a  sick  woman  because  she  has  not  that 
which  I  have?  " 

There  was  about  the  girl  an  alkali  of  uncompro- 
mising honesty  that  fizzled  up  at  the  least  admixture 
of  pharisaical  doctrine.  In  a  mood  of  absolute  de- 
pression something  beyond  her  ken  had  called  her 
out  into  the  street,  where  she  found  a  woman  sick  and 
in  want,  and  Alice  intended  to  help  her,  rouge  and 
red  skirts  notwithstanding. 

The  girl  was  too  ill  to  give  any  conscious  thought 
to  the  chance  Samaritan.  She  lay  back  in  the  cab 

220 


A    CHANCE    SAMARITAN 

with  eyes  closed,  breathing  hard,  and  from  time  to 
time  moistening  her  dry  lips,  on  which  the  blood 
had  caked  in  little  flecks.  Neither  had  spoken  since 
they  entered  the  cab.  Row  after  row  of  houses 
slipped  by  them  in  the  darkness,  some  huddled  to- 
gether in  respectable  family  slumber;  some  blinking 
at  the  night  with  one  red  eye  that  disclosed  the 
word  "  Hotel."  The  house  of  which  they  were  in 
quest  seemed  a  shade  more  dreary  than  its  fellows, 
—  a  gaunt,  smooth-shaven  house,  secretive  in  every 
feature.  A  gas  jet  flared  above  the  front  door, 
throwing  grotesque  shadows  on  the  word  "  Apart- 
ments "  painted  in  white  letters  around  the  half-cir- 
cular transom. 

Miss  Dean  told  the  cabman  to  wait,  and  offered 
her  arm  to  the  girl;  they  entered  together.  And 
now,  let  me  tell  you  that  Alice,  for  all  her  uplifting 
thoughts  of  universal  sisterhood,  knew  that  grim 
fear  that  stalks  about  strange  places  and  makes  the 
victim's  skin  grow  tight  about  the  roots  of  his  hair. 

Together  they  mounted  the  dark  staircase,  Alice 
with  her  arm  about  the  girl's  waist,  fairly  dragging 
her  two  steps  at  a  time,  the  sick  girl  gasping  pitifully 
at  the  enforced  exertion.  Alice  felt  the  cruelty  of 
hurrying  her,  but  of  unknown  terrors  lurking  in  the 
dark  landings  she  did  not  trust  herself  to  think.  It 
seemed  an  intolerable  time  till  the  girl  recovered  her 
breath,  found  her  key,  and  opened  the  door;  she 
groped  about  for  a  match,  lighted  a  lamp,  then 
threw  herself  into  a  chair  with  the  abandon  of  utter 
exhaustion. 

The  room  smelt  of  London,  poverty,  and  drugs. 
221 


LORD    ALINGHAM,  BANKRUPT 

It  was  a  sitting-room,  and  opened  on  a  bedroom 
beyond.  There  was  a  sofa  in  which  the  springs 
towered  aloft  into  mountain  peaks  with  valleys  be- 
tween; an  arm-chair  presenting  the  same  geograph- 
ical inequalities  of  surface  matched  the  sofa;  the 
rest  of  the  furniture  —  a  table,  a  couple  of  chairs  — 
was  of  deal.  There  was  no  gilded  ease  nor  flouting 
luxury ;  visible  poverty  made  itself  at  home  in  every 
corner  of  the  place.  A  group  of  medicine  bottles 
herded  together  on  the  mantelpiece;  among  them  a 
flask  of  whiskey.  Alice  poured  a  little  in  a  glass, 
added  water  from  a  carafe,  and  gave  it  to  the  girl, 
who  sipped  it  slowly,  regarding  Alice  narrowly  as 
she  busied  herself  about  the  room.  The  trained  eye 
of  the  woman  of  the  streets,  which  learns  to  take 
a  passing  impression  with  the  precision  and  fidelity 
of  a  camera,  registered  Alice  correctly.  She  was 
unmistakably  conscious  of  the  presence  of  a  gentle- 
woman. 

"  I  don't  know  how  to  thank  you,"  the  girl  said 
when  Alice  had  taken  off  her  wet  boots,  mud- 
splashed  and  down  at  the  heel  with  much  tramping 
of  the  streets. 

"  Don't  try."  And  Alice  went  on  with  her  prepa- 
rations, heating  water  over  a  spirit  lamp,  turning 
down  the  covers  of  the  bed,  shaking  out  the  folds 
of  the  red  dress.  Neither  referred  to  the  stark 
circumstance  that  had  brought  them  together;  and 
each,  in  avoiding  a  reference  to  it,  acquiesced  in 
what  she  felt  to  be  the  inclination  of  the  other. 

"  Is  a  doctor  looking  after  you  ?  " 

"  I   go   to   the  hospital   for   medicine,"    the   girl 

222 


A    CHANCE    SAMARITAN 

answered,  expecting  the  next  question  would  be: 
"  Have  you  any  relatives?  " 

But  Alice  asked  no  questions;  she  had  no  wish 
to  cross-examine,  urge  repentance,  offer  tracts,  and 
demand  a  dramatic  story  of  downfall,  —  she  simply 
wanted  to  make  things  a  little  easier  for  the  sick  girl. 

"  I  hope  you  will  sleep  well ;  would  you  like  me 
to  stay  with  you,  or  would  you  rest  better  if  I  went 
away?" 

There  were  tears  in  the  girl's  eyes  as  she  said : 

"  Would  —  would  you  stay  ?  " 

"  Then  I  will  send  the  cabman  away.  I  told  him 
to  wait." 

Again  Alice  plunged  down  the  dark  stairs.  She 
considered  sending  a  message  to  Mrs.  Hennessy,  but 
decided  on  its  impracticability.  Betty  would  come 
home  late  and  imagine  that  Alice  was  still  in  Devon- 
shire; if  she  should  hear  of  her  return  from  any  of 
the  servants,  she  would  imagine  Alice  had  gone  to 
bed  hours  ago;  they  were  not  given  to  midnight 
confidences. 

She  paid  the  cabman,  then  loitered,  waiting  for  a 
fresh  impulse  of  courage  to  bear  her  up  the  stairs, 
finally  running  as  if  a  thousand  perils  were  in  pur- 
suit. On  regaining  the  room,  she  locked  the  door 
and  quietly  slipped  the  bolt,  —  she  was  fully  aware 
of  the  danger  of  her  position. 

The  girl  heard  the  bolt  slip,  for  all  Alice's  quiet 
precaution. 

"  There  is  no  danger.     You  will  be  quite  safe." 

And  nothing  further  was  said  in  explanation 
of  their  sudden  fellowship.  The  street  girl  was 

223 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

strangely  shy  in  the  presence  of  a  good  woman 
who  further  complicated  the  situation  by  an  avoid- 
ance of  proselyting. 

Alice  combed  out  the  girl's  hair;  it  was  black  and 
abundant,  and  as  each  strand  slipped  through  the 
comb  it  twisted  into  tender  little  spirals. 

"  How  lovely  it  is,"  said  Alice  in  sincerest 
admiration. 

"  It 's  strange  I  don't  lose  it  when  I  'm  so  ill," 
—  and  there  was  a  faint  echo  of  pride  in  the  state- 
ment, —  "  but  it  does  n't  fall  out." 

The  girl  was  wonderfully  pretty  in  her  white 
night-dress,  —  and  Alice  wondered  if  she  had  been 
less  pretty,  would  she  have  been  here  in  this  wretched 
room  dying  alone. 

Miss  Dean  made  the  most  of  her  Samaritan  duties 
as  a  substitute  for  conversation.  It  was  difficult  to 
talk  to  this  girl  without  stumbling  on  some  chance 
reference  to  her  mode  of  life,  or  the  circumstances 
in  which  she  had  been  found.  And  this  Alice  shrank 
from  as  she  would  have  shrunk  from  the  inflicting 
of  a  wound.  Again,  the  girl's  personality  compli- 
cated the  situation.  Her  voice  had  the  controlled 
modulation  of  good  breeding;  a  certain  delicacy  that 
evinced  itself  in  a  dozen  ways  when  Alice  had  as- 
sisted her  in  her  preparations  for  bed,  —  these  things 
made  Miss  Dean  feel  akin  to  her.  And  yet,  the 
shrieking  scarlet  frock,  the  rouged  cheeks,  the  un- 
mistakable errand  on  which  she  had  been  bent,  were 
too  horrible  to  think  of.  Alice  reproached  herself 
with  a  lack  of  real  charity  for  her  inability  to  break 
down  the  constraint. 

224 


A    CHANCE   SAMARITAN 

The  girl  turned  uneasily  in  her  bed,  and  Alice, 
fearing  an  impending  confidence,  said: 

"  Try  to  sleep  now ;   I  '11  put  out  the  light." 

"  Don't  think  me  ungrateful  because  I  can't  say 
more  to  thank  you.  I  am  not  even  surprised  you 
are  here.  I  dreamed  of  you  twice,  and  once  when  I 
sat  here  alone,  I  felt  your  hand  touch  me.  Just  as 
it  did  to-night." 

"  Then  you  expected  me?  " 

"  Perhaps  it 's  because  I  'm  so  ill  that  I  dream 
strange  things,  and  the  other  night  I  dreamed  I  died, 
and  they  were  taking  me  to  Potter's  Field,  and  I 
would  not  go,  I  was  afraid.  They  tried  to  carry  me, 
and  I  struggled  with  them  —  I  who  am  so  weak  — 
but  they  could  not  overcome  me  —  and  I  called  and 
called  to  a  crowd  of  women,  but  they  only  looked 
at  me  and  would  not  come.  Then,  a  girl  came  — 
I  do  not  remember  her  face  —  and  took  me  away  to 
such  a  nice  quiet  place;  and  when  you  spoke  to  me 
to-night,  I  knew  you  must  be  she." 

Alice  racked  her  brain  to  think  of  something  cheer- 
ing to  say  to  this  girl,  but  what  was  to  be  said? 
At  least  she  had  youth. 

"  The  absurdity  of  a  girl  of  your  age  talking  of 
Potter's  Field,  —  now  go  to  sleep ;  "  and  stooping 
over,  Alice  kissed  her  on  the  forehead.  "  Not  an- 
other word  to-night.  No,  don't  even  ask  if  I  've 
wound  the  clock." 

Miss  Dean  sat  in  the  dark  chilly  room  and  listened 
to  the  symphony  of  the  city  die  away  in  the  clatter 
of  hoofs  pattering  past,  fainter  and  fainter ;  then  — 
still. 

15  225 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

To  keep  up  her  courage,  she  permitted  herself  a 
little  mental  soliloquy :  "  Alice,  my  dear,"  she  said, 
"  like  our  namesake  we  appear  to  have  fallen  into 
Wonderland, — not  the  dear  wholesome  Wonderland 
of  the  March  Hare  and  the  Mock  Turtle,  but  a  hide- 
ous place  full  of  night  things  and  one  poor  sick  girl. 
But  we  think  our  trip  to  Wonderland,  or  Uglyland, 
has  done  us  good.  We  needed  some  awful  illustra- 
tion of  misery,  some  brutal  page  torn  out  of  life 
and  thrust  on  our  attention,  to  make  us  realise 
our  own  selfish  sorrows,  and  if  we  get  out  of  Ugly- 
land  alive,  we  intend  to  go  back  to  our  old  Dad  in 
the  West,  and  leave  the  '  nobility,  gentry,  and  clergy  ' 
to  their  own  devices." 

The  lagging  hours  grew  ominous,  —  the  gnawing 
of  a  rat  in  the  wainscoting  was  full  of  sinister  sig- 
nificance. Alice  turned  the  situation  over  repeatedly 
-the  girl  was  only  a  frayed-off  thread  from  the 
skirts  of  London,  and  a  great  city  must  trail  her 
skirts  through  ugly  places,  and  frayed-off  threads 
are  snipped  by  Fate's  relentless  scissors.  But  she  in- 
tended to  see  that  the  passing  of  this  street  waif 
should  be  less  desolate  than  the  passing  of  a  street 
dog. 

It  was  nearly  seven  o'clock  when  Miss  Dean  took 
leave  of  the  girl,  promising  to  come  again  in  the 
afternoon.  At  the  corner  of  Park  Lane  she  dis- 
missed the  cab  that  had  brought  her  home.  A  sleepy 
house-maid  was  scrubbing  the  steps  as  she  entered. 

"  Good-morning,  Parker." 

"  Good-morning,  Miss,"  the  maid  answered,  think- 
ing Miss  Dean  had  been  for  an  early  morning  walk, 

226 


A    CHANCE   SAMARITAN 

and  deciding  that  gentlefolk  take  little  advantage  of 
their  comforts.  In  Miss  Dean's  place,  Parker  would 
have  slept  later. 

Mrs.  Hennessy  noticed  that  after  Alice  returned 
from  Devonshire  she  was  less  often  available  for 
social  engagements  than  formerly,  and  Mrs.  Hen- 
nessy feared  the  worst.  By  the  worst,  she  meant  the 
Sisterhood  of  St.  John.  A  haunting  dread  lest  Alice 
should  join  the  order  filled  her,  and  it  was  not  les- 
sened by  the  presence  of  Margaret  Colton  in  the 
house.  Margaret  and  Alice  were  continually  away 
attending  to  some  mysterious  business,  regarding 
which  they  kept  close  council.  When  Mrs.  Hennessy 
questioned  Alice,  the  girl  only  said  with  a  smile: 

"  Humanity,  Betty;  and,  you  know,  that  does  not 
interest  you." 

"  Slums,  I  suppose ;  I  only  hope  you  will  not  be 
bringing  home  germs." 

"  Don't  worry ;  there  is  nothing  so  beneficial  to 
the  little  busy  germ  as  worry." 

The  mystery  continued  for  a  fortnight.  Margaret 
and  Alice  were  hardly  ever  at  home  at  the  same  time. 
Betty's  curiosity  could  stand  it  no  longer;  in  her 
capacity  of  chaperone  she  demanded  to  know  the 
cause  of  the  mystery.  And  at  last  the  explanation 
was  forthcoming:  a  friend  of  theirs  was  dying  of 
consumption.  She  was  without  relatives,  and  they 
had  secured  lodgings  for  her  in  Kensington;  they 
went  to  read  to  her  daily,  and  that  was  all  there 
was  about  it. 

Mrs.  Hennessy  suddenly  lost  interest  in  the  case, 
—  there  were  so  many  poor  young  girls,  without 

227 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

relatives,  dying  of  consumption;  really  something 
ought  to  be  done  about  it. 

One  day  neither  of  the  girls  came  home  to  lun- 
cheon, and  when  Mrs.  Hennessy  encountered  them 
late  in  the  afternoon,  Alice  repudiated  the  idea  of 
going  to  a  Paderewski  recital.  And  then  she  did 
something  that  Mrs.  Hennessy  never  remembered 
her  to  have  done  before,  in  all  their  years  together. 
She  broke  down  and  cried  miserably. 

"  The  girl  we  spoke  of  died  this  afternoon,"  Mar- 
garet said  in  explanation,  and  there  was  a  sugges- 
tion of  tears  about  her  own  eyes.  And  so  the  street 
waif  lacked  neither  friends  nor  tears  in  her  passing. 
****** 

It  was  a  fortnight  later  that  Alice  announced  one 
morning  her  intention  of  returning  to  her  father  in 
the  West. 

"  But,  my  dear,  you  can't  possibly  go  now ;  I 
can't  leave  London,  and  there  is  no  one  to  go  with 
you." 

"  I  rather  think  an  American  girl  can  take  care  of 
herself  anywhere." 

"  But  to  cross  the  ocean  without  a  chaperone,  — 
my  dear,  it  is  not  decent." 

"  Dear  Betty,  suppose  our  mothers  had  reasoned 
that  way.  Why,  they  would  never  have  gone  West 
in  search  of  sage-brush  schools  and  —  incidentally 
—  our  fathers.  How  punctilious  we  have  grown  in 
one  generation !  " 

Then  Mrs.  Hennessy  showed  her  teeth  with  per- 
fect good-humour,  as  she  always  did  when  brought 
to  bay. 

228 


A    CHANCE    SAMARITAN 

"  Of  course,  there  are  hordes  of  battered  old  gen- 
tlewomen who  would  be  delighted  to  take  you  over 
for  —  a  consideration." 

"  Not  for  worlds.  I  '11  cable  Dad  to-day  to  meet 
me  in  New  York,  and  sail  Saturday  week." 

"  Oh,  you  incorrigible ! "  was  all  that  Mrs.  Hen- 
nessy  permitted  herself,  with  "  Poor  Gilchrist ! "  as 
an  afterthought. 

And  believe  me,  there  was  grief  under  many  a 
splendid  waistcoat  when  it  became  definitely  known 
that  the  prize  of  several  London  seasons  was  return- 
ing to  the  States  fancy  free.  She  was  not  the  type 
of  girl  one  associated  with  meditation  in  any  form. 


229 


CHAPTER   XXIV 

A   PRAIRIE   POINT   OF   VIEW 

ONCE  a  day,  or,  to  speak  with  tiresome  ex- 
actness, at  5  130  P.  M.,  the  west-bound  train 
stopped  for  a  brief  moment  at  the  little 
town  of  Puma,  and  then  continued  on  its  way  toward 
the  Pacific  Coast  with  a  derisive  shriek  at  such  pas- 
sengers as  had  been  sufficiently  intrepid  to  make 
Puma  their  stopping-place.  Well  might  it  shriek 
derisively  at  those  stranded  souls  left  to  accommo- 
date themselves  to  the  makeshifts  of  that  raw  prairie 
town,  whose  sole  claim  to  civic  responsibility  rested 
in  a  post-office,  a  brace  of  rival  saloons,  and  a  hotel 
maintained  by  the  railroad  that  stopped,  jeered  at, 
and  then  ran  away  from  Puma  once  in  the  twenty- 
four  hours. 

Sometimes  the  "  Overland,"  as  the  train  was  con- 
scientiously called  by  the  more  conservative  element, 
would  stop  at 'the  prematurely  aged  little  town,  day 
after  day,  without  contributing  a  single  passenger 
for  discussion.  And  the  frontier  loungers  gathered 
about  the  door  of  the  Interocean  —  as  the  railroad 
hotel  was  not  inaptly » called,  it  having  no  ocean 
nearer  than  fifteen  hundred  miles  —  would  solemnly 
file  to  the  bar  of  one  of  the  saloons  to  irrigate  such 
arid  topics  as  were  still  left  to  them. 

After  a  particularly  long  and  trying  hiatus  be- 
230 


A    PRAIRIE    POINT    OF    VIEW 

tween  human  topics,  —  in  which  the  group  exhibited 
all  the  symptoms  of  expecting  some  definite  food  for 
discussion,  —  there  alighted  from  the  train  one  after- 
noon two  passengers  whose  appearance  had  evidently 
been  anticipated. 

The  man  was  all  of  sixty,  but  he  wore  his  three- 
score with  such  an  unconscious  agility  as  to  convey 
the  impression  that  his  was,  at  least,  the  ideal  age 
in  man,  even  if  lighter  feminine  vintages  ripened  in 
fewer  years.  Furthermore,  this  deluding  old  man 
with  his  secret  of  perpetual  youth  stored  away  in  a 
ruddy  cheek,  —  like  a  derisive  tongue  curled  at  an 
indifferently  preserved  contemporary, — had  shaggy 
grey  hair  that  hung  about  the  shrewdest  face  in 
Christendom.  His  baggy  tweed  clothes,  undoubt- 
edly once  grey,  had  been  submitted  to  such  repeated 
processes  of  smoke  absorbing  that  they  had  acquired 
as  fine  an  amber  bloom  as  a  meerschaum.  The  lady 
who  accompanied  him  was  in  the  flowering  of  early 
twenty-hood,  but  this  amenity  of  ruthless  time  was 
lost  sight  of,  perhaps,  in  the  extreme  modishness  of 
her  attire,  which  anticipated  Paris  fashions  by  a  year, 
—  a  circumstance  most  distressingly  ignored  in 
Puma. 

The  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  gathered  on  the  steps 
of  the  Interocean  for  a  verdict,  agreed  loyally  that 
she  was  the  handsomest  yearling  ever  seen  in  the 
State.  And  as  the  buckboard  that  had  been  await- 
ing the  arrival  of  the  train  swept  by  the  hotel,  every 
sombrero  bounded  up  like  a  rocket,  and  there  arose 
three  cheers  that  would  have  insured  the  'election 
of  any  candidate  for  political  honours. 

231 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

Alice  Dean  had  not  forgotten  prairie  chivalry  and 
what  was  due  it.  She  leaned  out  of  the  buckboard, 
bowed  graciously,  and  waved  a  slim  hand  to  the 
gentlemen  of  the  jury. 

"  Can't  stop,  boys,"  called  out  old  Dean ;  "  there 
is  near  fifty  miles  between  this  filly  and  her  box 
stall." 

You  may  be  sure  the  jury  retired  to  do  its  duty 
by  so  important  an  event  as  the  return  of  Caspar 
Dean's  daughter;  in  fact,  the  town  celebrated  long 
and  gloriously. 

The  road  from  Puma  to  the  Dean  ranch  wound 
over  the  prairies  like  an  undulating  snake,  —  it  had 
been  the  original  Indian  trail,  —  and  it  curved  and 
writhed  around  almost  imperceptible  inequalities  on 
the  flat  country  in  true  Indian  fashion.  Huge  fields 
of  waving  grain  soon  replaced  the  crisp  prairie-grass, 
and  when  the  wind  swept  down  from  the  mountains, 
-  great  northwesterly  gusts  of  it  searching  out  the 
bottomest  crannies  of  the  lungs  and  awarding  in- 
stant testimonial  in  a  deeper  hue  of  cheek  and  a 
brighter  flash  of  eye,  —  it  lashed  the  yellow  sea  of 
grain  into  billows  that  rose  and  fell  to  the  limits  of 
dim  perspective.  Giant  wheatfields  they  were  that 
take  days  to  sow  and  days  to  reap,  and  where  the 
huge  machines  crawling  over  them  in  the  reaping-sea- 
son  bear  about  the  same  proportion  to  the  fields  that 
they  reap  as  a  fly  to  the  ceiling  that  he  crawls  across. 

Alice  had  begged  to  be  allowed  to  drive  the  broncos, 
and  old  Dean  was  admiring  the  practical  way  in  which 
she  handled  the  ribbons,  sitting  up  very  straight  as  she 
would  have  done  in  the  park. 

232 


A    PRAIRIE    POINT    OF    VIEW 

"  Not  bad,"  he  had  remarked  to  himself  two  or 
three  times  with  evident  approval. 

"Dad,  do  you  own  that  wheat?"  she  asked, 
neatly  flicking  a  fly  off  one  of  the  broncos. 

His  wink  was  positively  saturnine  as  he  answered : 

"  Accordin'  to  the  deeds  appurtainin'  to  them 
wheat  fields,  they  belong  to  the  '  Puma  Agricultural 
Company/  which  is  alias  for  Caspar  Dean.  Yes, 
miss,  the  alias  is  an  amiable  device  for  them  as  pros- 
pers ;  it  don't  do  to  let  your  name  get  too  common  in 
bizness  —  if  you  do,  life  's  one  long  ante-up  for  art- 
galleries,  libraries,  and  town  halls,  and  no  thanks  to 
the  human  Jack-pot,  either.  It 's  the  assessment  he 
pays  for  a  whole  skin,  which  as  likely  as  not  he  fails 
to  maintain." 

Alice  felt  a  bit  chilled  by  the  philosophy  of  this  re- 
mark, and  she  resolved  to  bide  her  time  and  attempt 
a  little  filial  proselyting. 

"  There 's  another  alias  of  mine  lurking  in  the 
vitals  of  that  mountain  —  the  third  there  to  the  right 
of  the  butte  —  yes,  clear  into  the  range.  That  mine 
is  known  as  '  The  Young  Hopeful.'  An  Eastern  syn- 
dicate draws  the  glory  for  workin'  it,  but  between 
me  an'  you,  that  syndicate  ain't  no  more  likely  to  de- 
mand dividends  than  one  of  them  lost  tribes  of  Israel." 

They  had  left  the  wheatfields  to  reflect  the  chang- 
ing glories  of  sunset  —  golden,  amethystine,  red,  dy- 
ing away,  then  flaming  vermilion,  changeable  in  form 
and  hue  as  the  contents  of  a  kaleidoscope,  and  wound 
away  toward  the  cowering  foothills  that  crouched  to- 
gether like  a  herd  in  a  storm.  The  flat  stretches  of 
country  between  the  gradual  rise  and  fall  of  the  land 

233 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

bloomed  deep  purplish  in  the  twilight,  and  the  long 
washes  of  orange  light  splashed  close  to  the  horizon 
produced  a  twilight  study,  vividly  impressionistic. 

The  recollection  of  this  Western  country  swept 
back  to  Alice  on  the  gusts  of  keen  northwestern  air. 
But  she  missed  something  from  the  landscape  as 
the  long,  melancholy  stretches  of  land,  the  embodi- 
ment of  enduring  monotony,  rolled  away  in  violet 
perspective,  the  bunches  of  cattle  grazing  as  quietly 
in  the  deepening  twilight  as  cattle  in  a  picture. 

"  There 's  something  gone  from  this,  Dad,  — 
something  wild;  I  can't  quite  make  it  out." 

"  It 's  the  buffalo  and  cattle  bones  that  were  strewn 
all  over  the  place ;  but  we  've  had  a  housecleaning 
since  your  day,  and  we  picked  a  dollar  or  two  out 
of  the  sweepings." 

"  Why,  what  could  you  do  with  those  poor  sun- 
bleached  bones  ?  " 

"  Grind  'em  up  to  manure  them  God-forsaken 
cemetery  lots  back  East,  that  goes  by  the  name  of 
farms.  I  heard  about  the  trick  up  in  Montana,  and 
I  says,  *  Caspar,  my  boy,  what 's  the  matter  with 
you  givin'  yourself  a  masquerade  party,  and  attendin' 
as  F.  E.  A.  Fertilizin'  Company  —  not  that  you  are 
rejuced  to  beggin'  your  grub  —  but  just  by  way  of 
keepin'  your  hand  in  practice  ? ' 

"  And  what  does  the  F.  E.  A.  stand  for?  "  asked 
Alice. 

"  Why,  '  Fool  'Em  Again,'  to  be  sure." 

"  Oh,  Daddy,  Daddy,  and  why  do  you  have  to  fool 
them?" 

"  You  see,  when  I  acquired  this  land  about  here, 
234 


A    PRAIRIE    POINT    OF   VIEW 

the  process  was  about  as  informal  as  a  lynching.  I 
took  up  all  the  grants  the  Government  was  willing  to 
treat  me  to,  and  it  took  a  herd  o'  aliases  to  do  it. 
Why,  Alice,  I  boasted  more  names  than  one  o'  them 
effete  monarchs  settin'  round  waitin'  for  some  one 
to  make  war  on  him.  I  had  a  couple  of  good  hustlers 
in  black  clothes  at  Washington  purifyin'  public  life, 
or  it  never  would  have  gone  through.  Well,  a  good 
many  o'  the  deeds  to  this  here  land  is  locked  in  my 
own  breast,  and  there  they  are  likely  to  stay,  since  you 
could  n't  affix  a  signature  to  them  any  more  than  you 
could  to  a  mountain  zephyr.  So,  you  see,  when  it 
came  to  pickin'  bones  off  these  yere  lands,  it  seemed 
to  require  the  co-operation  of  a  syndicate." 

Alice  breathed  a  little  harder  and  thought  of  the 
Watteau  that  had  been  her  father's  last  Christmas 
present. 

"  I  wish  you  'd  left  the  bones  here,  Daddy ;  I  miss 
them." 

"  By ,  you  shall  have  'em  back  again.  Alice, 

excuse  my  language,  which  is  sorely  in  need  of  a 
woman  to  round  it  up ;  but  if  you  want  bones,  I  '11 
send  up  north  and  get  'em." 

"  I  don't  want  them  as  bad  as  that ;  besides,  I  'm 
afraid  they  would  n't  look  natural  if  they  were  ar- 
ranged around  the  prairie;  but  I  am  just  as  much 
obliged." 

Alice  resigned  the  reins  to  her  father,  and  gave 
herself  up  to  the  undivided  pleasure  of  watching 
night  sweep  down  from  the  mountains  into  the  val- 
leys and  over  the  flat  stretches  of  land,  where  their 
team  followed  the  undulating  snake  road  that  coiled 

235 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

and  uncoiled  itself  before  them  in  the  darkness. 
Hour  after  hour  the  little  broncos  kept  it  up,  with 
hardly  a  pause  for  a  breathing  spell.  A  crescent 
moon  hung  over  the  foothills,  —  a  silver  bauble  set 
on  the  brow  of  night,  —  and  behind  the  fringes  of 
cottonwoods  on  the  creek  a  lonely  coyote  kept  up 
his  uncanny  laughter,  —  that  weirdest  of  Western 
sounds,  that  makes  the  stillness  echo  with  eerie  sug- 
gestion of  banshees.  The  loneliness  of  the  drive  was 
broken  only  once  by  a  passing  glimpse  of  human 
life,  and  this  gleamed  faintly  from  the  windows  of 
a  little  cottonwood  house  that  was  not  far  from 
the  mine  her  father  called  "  The  Young  Hopeful." 
She  asked  no  questions  regarding  the  cabin,  which 
had  been  lately  built,  fearing  further  tales  of  aliases, 
with  their  accompanying  unpleasant  suggestion  of 
business  not  quite  honest. 

It  was  not  far  from  midnight  when  the  dim  out- 
line of  the  ranch  buildings,  sharply  etched  against  the 
darkness,  suggested  a  town  of  far  larger  girth  than 
Puma.  Tucked  away  in  an  obscure  corner  of  the 
wilderness,  it  flourished  in  an  absolute,  if  somewhat 
primitive,  state  of  independence.  Its  storehouses, 
squat  cottonwood  buildings  burrowing  into  the  foot- 
hills like  badgers,  could  have  withstood  a  six  months' 
siege  and  hardly  have  missed  the  provisions.  Its 
blacksmith  shop  turned  out  shoes  for  every  horse  that 
bore  a  Dean  brand,  and  the  Dean  brands  were  more 
numerous  than  the  Dean  aliases.  Every  bit  of  beef 
and  mutton  consumed  by  the  vast  army  of  employees 
was  butchered  in  that  slouching  building  at  the  ex- 
treme left.  There  was  ice  a-plenty  in  the  ice-houses 

236 


A    PRAIRIE    POINT    OF    VIEW 

to  temper  the  summer  heat  to  the  shorn  lamb  who 
came  to  make  "business"  deals  with  old  Caspar;  and 
there  was  never  a  better  hand  at  the  shears  than  he. 

The  house  itself  had  no  definite  plan  of  existence, 
architecturally  or  otherwise.  It  was  a  thing  of  ex- 
tensions and  additions,  and  resembled  nothing  so 
much  as  a  collection  of  primitive  buildings  blown  to- 
gether by  a  cyclone.  The  most  primitive  of  them 
was  little  more  than  twenty-five  years  old.  It  had 
been  built  by  Caspar  Dean  when  his  worldly  goods 
represented  little  more  than  a  pruning-knife  and  the 
courage  that  is  its  own  excuse  for  being.  This  log- 
house  of  two  rooms  he  had  built  with  his  own  hands 
when  he  had  had  the  good  fortune  or  the  effrontery 
to  win  the  affections  of  the  pretty  school-teacher, 
over  the  head  of  every  fellow  in  the  country.  The 
rest  of  it  had  been  added  to  suit  the  exigencies  of 
ever-accumulating  prosperity;  to-day  it  was  as  bar- 
ren of  luxury  as  it  had  been  in  the  genesis  of  its 
existence. 

Old  John  Vail,  the  foreman  of  the  ranch  and  gen- 
eral factotum,  felt  that  Miss  Dean's  return  demanded 
something  special  in  the  way  of  celebration.  He 
had  held  her  on  a  pony  when  she  was  still  in  the 
creeping  stage  of  her  development,  and  his  intentions 
were  sincere,  if  vague.  He  swept  out  the  gaunt  en- 
trance hall  four  times  with  his  own  hands,  and  he 
lit  every  lamp  the  place  afforded,  with  the  result 
that  the  air  was  heavy  with  the  odour  of  coal  oil,  — 
a  votive  offering  to  Alice's  arrival.  But  it  seemed 
inadequate ;  there  was  nothing  to  denote  that  the  soft- 
ening and  refining  presence  of  woman  was  imminent. 

237 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

"  Confound  it,"  said  John  Vail,  only  he  put  it  more 
forcibly,  "the  place  ain't  got  a  homelike  air;  it's 
bleak  as  a  gallows."  But  presently  his  rugged  coun- 
tenance blossomed  into  light :  he  had  had  an  inspira- 
tion. "  She  was  blamed  fond  of  'em  when  she  was 
a  papoose.  I  should  n't  wonder  if  some  of  them  wild 
old  feline  Mormons  stampedin'  wild  round  the  place 
ain't  the  descendants  of  some  of  her  pets."  And  for 
the  next  fifteen  minutes  John  Vail  spent  as  lively  a 
time  catching  one  of  the  huge  cats  that  prowled  about 
the  outbuildings  of  the  Dean  ranch  as  he  ever  put  in 
roping  a  steer  for  the  branding-pen.  The  cats  were 
absolutely  wild  and  never  came  near  the  house,  but 
what  was  feline  reticence  when  will  and  chivalry  hung 
in  the  balance?  John  Vail  presently  returned  to  the 
ranch  with  something  that  spit  and  struggled,  but 
nevertheless  was  expected  to  create  a  roseate  home 
atmosphere. 

"  Here,  quit  that  psalm-singin',  you  old  Mormon 
elder,  and  set  by  that  fire  and  blink  while  I  go  and  get 
you  a  necktie.  There  's  going  to  be  ladies  present  — 
or  at  least  one  lady  —  but  she 's  worth  a  herd  of 
'em." 

The  home  influence  thus  apostrophised  refused 
to  blink ;  in  fact,  he  seemed  to  take  pride  in  embodying 
a  spirit  of  unrest,  leaping  about  the  room,  snarling, 
spitting,  turning  himself  into  a  catapult  of  fury  and 
bristling  fur. 

John  Vail  presently  returned  with  several  neck- 
ties, from  which  he  selected  one  which,  according  to 
his  taste,  would  be  most  becoming  to  his  rebellious 
victim.  The  cat  was  black,  —  even  a  witch  could 

238 


A    PRAIRIE    POINT    OF    VIEW 

not  have  found  the  necessary  white  hair  with  which 
to  work  her  charm;  so  John  did  well  in  his  choice 
of  a  red  necktie.  But  when  it  came  to  the  labour  of 
tying  a  bow,  he  would  have  made  a  better  business 
of  the  Gordian  knot.  So  the  feline  pariah  had  to 
take  a  four-in-hand,  and  his  trailing  haberdashery 
complicated  matters  and  made  him  more  bitter  every 
moment. 

John  was  trying  to  win  his  affections  by  raw  meat 
when  the  door  opened  and  Alice  and  her  father  en- 
tered. The  air  was  warm  and  viscid  with  the  odour 
of  coal  oil,  and  with  one  mighty  caterwaul  the  home 
influence  leapt  out  into  the  night,  four-in-hand  and 
all. 

"  Johnnie  Vail,  Johnnie  Vail,  I  'm  so  glad  to  see 
you,  and  the  ranch  —  and  —  and  —  all  the  lamps, 
but  you  '11  make  me  vain  if  you  celebrate  my  return 
in  this  lavish  way.  I  feel  like  a  candidate  for  gover- 
nor. Let 's  put  out  five  or  six  of  them  and  save  the 
coal  oil." 

Alice  had  forgotten,  during  her  long  absence,  the 
stark  conditions  at  home.  Existence  reduced  to  its 
simplest  terms  seemed  to  be  the  working  principle 
of  the  Dean  ranch.  Many  of  the  rooms  were  even 
unplastered,  the  crevices  between  the  cottonwood  logs 
being  daubed  with  mud,  —  no  very  effectual  protec- 
tion against  heat  and  cold.  The  greater  part  of  the 
furniture  had  been  constructed  at  the  ranch  carpenter 
shop,  —  cumbrous  benches,  unpainted  and  rubbed 
smooth  as  satin  from  long  usage;  heavy  chairs  built 
to  stand  much  tilting  and  the  strain  of  titanic  laugh- 
ter; bunks  constructed  with  no  more  pretence  of 

239 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

luxury  than  those  in  a  last-century  sailing-ship.  Old 
Caspar  would  have  been  as  uncomfortable  in  the 
presence  of  the  ordinary  comforts  of  life  as  he  was 
with  his  neck  in  a  tall  collar. 

"  We  're  rough,  Alice,  rough  as  a  log  with  the 
bark  on,  but  that  ain't  sayin'  you  can't  take  a  plane 
to  us  whenever  you  d —  blame,  please.  Say,  Alice, 
I  can  say  '  blame/  can't  I  ?  Give  a  man  something 
to  taper  off  on." 

"  Poor  Daddy !  '  Blame '  does  stand  for  a  good 
deal  of  water  in  the  conversational  toddy;  yes,  you 
can  say  '  blame.' ' 

Alice  found  the  little  bedroom  that  she  had  always 
occupied  practically  unchanged;  except  that  some 
kindly  disposed  soul  —  John  Vail  perhaps  —  had 
painted  the  bed  a  vivid  and  sight-destroying  blue 
as  a  tribute  to  her  return.  The  iron  wash-stand 
was  still  the  same,  and  the  little  bureau  that  she  had 
grown  a  foot  too  tall  for. 

Her  father  accompanied  her  to  the  door,  gallantly 
bearing  one  of  the  smoking  lamps. 

"If  there  had  been  time,  Alice,  I  would  have  sent 
back  East  for  a  couple  of  plush  parlour  sets,  but  you 
made  up  your  mind  so  quickly,  I  did  n't  have  time 
to  more  'n  catch  the  train." 

"  I  'm  glad  you  did  n't,  Dad ;  we  've  got  to  have 
a  general  overhauling  here,  and  I  'm  glad  you  did  n't 
get  the  fine  furniture." 

Left  to  herself,  Alice  drew  a  chair  to  the  window 
and  looked  out  on  the  sleeping  wilderness.  Yes,  she 
had  not  come  back  a  day  too  soon.  It  was  horrible 
to  think  of  her  father  with  his  almost  inestimable 

240 


A    PRAIRIE    POINT    OF    VIEW 

wealth  getting  his  greatest  pleasure  out  of  life  in 
evading  taxes,  or  taking  advantage  of  another's  ne- 
cessity to  transact  some  particularly  profitable  deal.  It 
was  not  that  he  had  grown  penurious,  but  that  the 
gathering  in  of  more  than  his  due,  and  the  evasion 
of  every  financial  responsibility,  represented  the  one 
pleasure  he  had  in  life.  She  had  been  too  young 
when  she  went  away  to  realise  these  conditions,  if 
they  then  existed;  and  with  the  firm  conviction  that 
there  was  work  at  hand,  Alice  lay  down  in  the  maz- 
arine blue  bed  and  slept  soundly,  the  smell  of  fresh 
paint  notwithstanding. 

The  easy  days  of  letting  the  house  run  itself  were 
no  more  for  the  Dean  ranch.  Each  morning,  like 
a  goddess  of  the  storm,  there  swept  down  on  that 
unfortunate  and  easy-going  household  a  vision  in 
an  all-over  apron,  and,  at  her  bidding,  clouds  of 
dust  flew,  windows  rattled  in  their  frames  under 
the  manipulation  of  cloth  and  pail.  Tobacco  ashes 
were  rooted  from  the  stronghold  of  years,  and  the 
voice  of  the  housewife  was  heard  in  the  land. 

Old  Dean,  suddenly  finding  his  vocabulary  shorn 
of  its  profanity  by  the  presence  of  his  daughter, 
and  the  pitiful  remnant  of  the  English  tongue  thus 
left  at  his  command  quite  inadequate  to  express  his 
meaning,  eked  out  his  scanty  verbiage  by  much  thigh- 
slapping  and  the  composing  of  harmless  expletives 
which  he  thought  any  lady  might  hear  with  propriety. 

"  Da —  blanky  dash  —  see  here,  Alice,  you  don't 

mind  my  saying  blanky  dash,  do  you  ?    You  'd  make 

a  fine  foreman  for  this  here  place.  The  way  you  have 

taken  this  old  shack  in  hand,  and  made  it  look  like 

16  241 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

a  ole-fashioned  hawg-killing  inside  of  a  week,  does 
credit  to  your  executive  powers.  There  's  no  lack  of 
action  in  your  gait,  blamed  if  there  is." 

"  I  'm  prepared  to  accept  the  job  of  foreman,  Dad, 
if  you  make  it  worth  my  while." 

"  It 's  a  d —  blanked  shame,  Alice,  you  ain't  a  boy. 
That 's  what  I  said  when  me  and  you  was  first  in- 
troduced, an'  I  won't  hide  it ;  I  did  n't  set  much 
store  on  the  pleasure  of  your  acquaintance.  Woman 
is  mostly  like  the  joker  in  a  pack  of  cards,  —  in  most 
deals  she  gets  thrown  out.  But  you  are  playing  a  bad 
hand  well.  I  dunno,  if  you  keep  on  like  this,  I  '11 
have  to  be  reconciled  to  your  being  a  girl,  after  all." 

"  So  you  've  had  a  grudge  against  me  for  being 
a  girl  all  these  years?  " 

"  Not  a  grudge  exactly,  but  I  was  plumb  disap- 
pointed, somewhere  about  twenty-three  years  ago, 
when  trumps  turned  up  —  girls.  I  knew  it  was  low 
down  to  hold  it  up  ag'in  a  lone  infant  that  never 
had  a  hand  in  the  deal,  —  me  and  you  did  n't  mingle 
much  in  them  days,  —  but  you  Ve  made  an  out  an' 
out  conquest  of  your  old  Dad  now,  Alice." 

The  old  man  looked  at  her  solemnly  for  a  moment 
and  then  said :  "I  dare  say  I  was  makin'  a  good 
bargain  without  knowing  it.  If  you  'd  bin  a  boy, 
you  'd  be  looking  for  me  to  take  a  back  seat  'bout 
this  time,  —  an'  it  ain't  my  way  to  cash  my  chips 
'til  the  game  is  done,  no,  it  ain't,  by  God." 

"  I  suppose  I  '11  have  to  forgive  you,  Dad,  for 
your  injustice.  I  will  paraphrase  Henri  Quatre  and 
say,  '  It  would  be  unworthy  Miss  Dean  to  resent 
the  injustice  done  to  a  crying  infant.' ' 

242 


A    PRAIRIE    POINT   OF   VIEW 

"  '  Henry  Cat ' !  Why,  that 's  the  first  man's  name 
I  've  heard  you  mention ;  was  he  one  of  them  toad- 
eatin'  foreigners  ?  I'm  glad  you  did  n't  take  him ; 
I  don't  like  his  name.  '  Cat '  might  be  a  good 
name  for  a  mother-in-law,  but  I  would  n't  stand 
for  it  in  my  daughter's  husband." 

"  Don't  give  a  second  thought  to  Henri  Quatre," 
said  Alice,  with  deepening  dimples. 

"  Now,  as  we  're  carving  up  this  here  subject, 
Alice,  I  '11  take  the  occasion  to  remark  that  there 
was  a  time  when  I  was  under  a  considerable  misap- 
prehension of  uneasiness  regardin'  the  tender  quality 
of  your  affections.  I  remember  you  askin'  me  once, 
when  you  was  a  kid  and  had  done  something  naughty, 
to  give  you  a  licking,  so  you  'd  feel  as  if  you  b' longed 
to  someone.  God  a'mighty,  I  says,  here  's  this  girl 
turnin'  soft  on  my  hands,  and  she  ain't  in  long 
frocks." 

"  Oh,  Dad,  I  say,  let 's  forget  that  nonsense,  — 
I  'm  hard  as  nails." 

"  Glad  of  it ;  them  females  as  has  no  more  affec- 
tions than  a  blizzard  are  the  ones  that  retain  the 
affections  of  the  sterner  sex  by  the  simple  process 
of  cold  storage.  But  women  are  like  cattle:  they 
don't  realise  their  power,  —  they  bellow  out  their 
love  'til  a  man  is  sick  o'  hearing  it,  —  then  they 
wait  on  him  as  if  he  was  a  new-born  babe.  Them 
tactics  has  about  the  same  relation  to  the  subjuga- 
tion of  man  as  the  smearing  on  of  war  paint  has  to 
real  fighting." 

"Oh,  Daddy,  Daddy!" 

"  Yes,  miss,  the  scientific  way  for  wooman  to 
243 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

subdue  man  is  to  load  him  with  burdens  like  a 
pack-horse.  There  was  a  widow  yonder,  on  Birds- 
eye  Creek.  She  had  no  more  claims  to  beauty  than 
a  mouse-trap,  but  she  was  a  fine  bleater.  She  bleated 
about  her  family  responsibilities,  her  cares  and  wor- 
riments,  the  whole  enduring  time,  stopping  only 
long  enough  for  meals.  What  happens?  The  most 
blankety  dash  selfish  cuss  in  the  country  up  and  mar- 
ries her." 

"  How  do  you  account  for  it  ?  " 

"  By  the  amiable  process  of  first  principles.  This 
here  selfish  cuss  ain't  got  no  more  real  manhood 
than  a  hitchin'-post,  but  by  the  simple  act  of  that 
female  bleatin'  to  him  of  her  trials  and  tribulations, 
he  is  made  to  regard  hisself  in  a  manly  light.  It  in- 
creased his  self-respect;  he  seen  hisself  the  stalwart 
oak  supportin'  the  droopin'  vine.  An'  that 's  what 
he  's  doin'  ever  since,  —  supportin'  the  whole  outfit." 

Alice's  laughter  had  a  curious  little  ring  to  it, 
and  she  suddenly  remembered  an  errand  that  took 
her  upstairs. 


In  transforming  the  ranch  from  the  crude  frontier 
shelter  into  a  comfortable  dwelling,  Alice  drew  largely 
on  the  tact  that  had  enabled  her  to  slip  through  life 
without  giving  offence.  She  had  no  intention  of 
dispelling  the  simplicity  without  which  old  Caspar 
would  not  have  felt  at  home;  frivolous  upholstery 
and  petty  decoration  would  have  exasperated  him, 
and  rather  than  face  this  alternative,  Alice  would 
have  slept  in  the  blue  bed  for  the  rest  of  her  life. 

244 


A    PRAIRIE    POINT    OF    VIEW 

The  big  bare  room  by  which  one  gained  access  to 
the  house,  and  which  had  no  more  definite  mission 
than  that  of  a  sort  of  general  lounging-place,  was  a 
most  uninviting  sort  of  barracks,  with  the  frankest 
of  frank  pegs  about  the  walls,  on  which  hung  bat- 
tered and  demoralised  sombreros ;  a  couple  of  clumsy 
benches  in  front  of  the  great  fireplace,  which,  of 
course,  would  have  roasted  whole  the  traditional 
ox;  a  battered  desk  containing  a  few  soiled  and 
yellow  papers,  cartridges,  tobacco,  pipes,  ashes,  — 
a  garrison  of  empty  bottles  along  the  top;  within, 
bits  of  string,  rusty  pens,  dried  ink-bottles,  rusty 
knives;  in  fact,  the  neglected  desk  was  the  potter's 
field  of  a  household  where  there  was  no  woman  to 
prosecute  the  domestic  inquisition  of  spring  cleaning. 

These  primitive  devices  for  home  making  were 
replaced  by  oaken  chests  and  settles  which,  at  least, 
boasted  the  grim  dignity  of  the  Jacobean  period, 
if  other  certificates  of  genuineness  were  wanting. 
Bearskins  were  substituted  for  the  carpets  that  old 
Caspar  regarded  as  health-destroying  institutions. 
Shelves  of  books  helped  to  thaw  the  air  of  austerity, 
and  the  great  fireplace  sounded  the  home  note. 

The  spirit  of  reform  paused  before  one  room  only 
in  that  household,  —  the  master  begged  to  keep  his 
cot  bed,  his  iron  wash-stand,  and  the  scrap  of  mirror 
that  had  given  back  a  grim  and  wavy  reflection  of 
his  shrewd  face,  in  the  process  of  being  lathered, 
every  morning  since  he  had  been  old  enough  to 
wield  a  razor. 

"  I  'm  plumb  proud  o'  this  place,  Alice,  since  you 
have  branded  it  with  the  refinin'  inflooence  of  woman, 

245 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

an'  you  ain't  cluttered  it  up  with  a  houseful  of  squaw 
truck,  either." 

Alice,  who  was  in  the  middle  of  a  letter  to  Mrs. 
Hennessy,  —  the  first  long  one  she  had  had  an  op- 
portunity of  writing  since  her  return,  —  smiled  up 
at  her  father,  and  continued  writing :    "  I  am  sure 
I  don't  know  what  will  become  of  Dad  if  he  does 
not  restrain  his  acquisitive  propensity.    He  is  lavish 
to  a  fault  with  me,  and  most  generous  to  all  his  work- 
ing people;    but  the  only  thing  that  gives  him  any 
real  pleasure  is  the  acquiring  of  something  for  a 
fraction  of  its  value.     I  feel  that  this  is  largely  my 
fault;    I  left  him  alone  so  long  that  the  habit  has 
fastened  itself  on  him.     Heaven  knows,  in  writing 
this,  I  feel  as  hypocritical  as  a  little  Eva,  or  the 
child  with  the  graphophone  voice  on  the  stage,  who 
urges  its  warring  parents  to  kiss  and  make  up,  but 
I  feel  so  guilty  about  it.     Just  at  present  he  is  on 
the  trail  of  another  mine.     Some  eccentric  English- 
man who  is  holding  down  the  claim  for  a  syndicate 
is  there.     I  am  trying  to  urge  him  to  let  me  go 
with  him  when  he  looks  over  the  ground,  and  my 
scheme  is,  to  balk  the  bargain.    Daddy  has  too  many 
things  on  hand  now ;   he  is  worn  out  with  them ;   he 
does  n't  need  another  mine  any  more  than  I  need  a 
title.     I  have  come  home  a  better  American  than 
ever." 

And  here  the  letter  branched  off  on  other  matters. 
When  it  was  finished,  Alice  went  in  search  of  her 
father.  She  had  made  up  her  mind  that  if  she  could 
dissuade  him  from  buying  the  mine,  she  would  be 
saving  him  considerable  worry. 

246 


CHAPTER   XXV 
WHERE  THE  WORLD   LOOKS  YOUNG 

THERE  was  no  railroad  from  Puma  to  that 
far-off  corner  of  Wyoming  where  Caspar 
Dean  contemplated  buying  a  mine.  The 
journey  thither  had  to  be  accomplished  in  a  series 
of  detached  trips  that  included  railroading,  staging, 
and  finally  a  horseback  ride  across  a  section  of  that 
arid  waste  of  alkali  plain  marked  on  the  atlas  as 
the  Great  American  Desert.  But  Alice  delighted 
her  father  by  making  a  crony  of  hardship,  and  de- 
manded no  more  time  to  prepare  for  any  expedition 
than  the  most  weather-seasoned  cowboy. 

The  mine  in  question  had  a  somewhat  legendary 
reputation  for  vast  wealth  that  extended  back  to 
the  days  of  the  French  missionary  priests;  and  the 
campfire  stories  of  its  fabulous  wealth  and  elusive 
locality  had  lost  nothing  in  a  century's  tradition. 

But  this  mine,  as  well  as  Captain  Kidd's  buried 
treasure,  the  pot  of  gold  at  the  end  of  the  rainbow, 
and  other  plums  of  fortune  that  are  to  be  had  for 
the  finding,  required  but  an  exact  location  these 
hundred  years  to  give  it  an  owner.  Explicit  direc- 
tions as  to  its  precise  situation  had  not  been  lacking, 
but  they  had  yielded  nothing  more  profitable  than 
disappointment,  death,  and  the  squandering  of  vast 

247 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

sums  of  money.  There  are  few  legends  of  the 
Shoshone  tribe  into  which  some  tradition  of  the 
mine  has  not  been  woven.  They  are  the  gold  thread 
that  still  catches  the  light  in  the  faded  tapestry 
where  all  the  warrior  figures  are  dim.  They  claimed 
the  mine  by  right  of  inheritance ;  their  fathers'  fore- 
fathers knew  of  it  before  they  had  ever  seen  a  pale- 
face, but  they  kept  their  own  counsel  as  to  its  location, 
spite  of  the  fire-water  given  with  no  stinting  hand 
by  the  pale-faces  when  the  question  of  the  "  Lost 
Shoshone,"  as  it  had  come  to  be  called,  arose. 

In  common  with  every  gold  mine  of  fabulous 
wealth  but  indefinite  location,  it  claimed  the  story 
of  the  priest  and  his  rosary,  —  that  charming  tale 
of  Indian  craft  and  Jesuitical  wile  which  met  with 
all  the  shock  of  an  irresistible  force  coming  in  con- 
tact with  an  immovable  body. 

Many  years  ago,  so  runs  the  tale,  when  this  great 
Republic  was  still  in  its  swaddling  clothes,  a  fever 
broke  out  among  the  Indians  of  the  Shoshone  tribe, 
gathering  them  into  the  happy  hunting-grounds  by 
thousands.  A  French  priest  travelling  among  them 
at  the  time  warded  off  the  dread  disease  with  Jesuit's 
bark  and  with  simples  that  he  knew  how  to  brew 
to  great  advantage  when  the  body  ached  and  the 
head  throbbed  as  from  the  unfriendly  tapping  of  a 
tomahawk. 

The  simple  redmen  were  thankful  to  the  padre 
and  wished  to  make  him  sensible  of  their  gratitude, 
but  sickness  and  want  had  reduced  them  and  they 
had  little  to  give.  So  they  smoked  over  it,  and  de- 
cided to  show  the  holy  man  their  mine,  —  the  one 

248 


WHERE   WORLD    LOOKS   YOUNG 

glory  left  their  fast-decaying  race.  No  pale-face 
had  seen  its  treasured  wealth  before,  and  no  pale- 
face would  again ;  of  that  the  redmen  took  precious 
care. 

So  they  bound  up  the  padre's  eyes,  set  him  on  a 
horse,  and  led  him  back  and  forth  through  the  tangle 
of  foothills  till  the  good  man  could  not  have  told 
whither  they  were  leading  him,  and  so  gained  the 
mine;  and  when  they  were  within  the  bowels  of 
the  earth  they  took  the  bandages  off  his  eyes, 
and  there  was  gold  enough  to  make  him  blink,  — 
and  his  palms  itch,  too,  all  his  vows  of  poverty 
notwithstanding. 

The  noble  redmen  played  the  host  handsomely  on 
that  occasion.  They  filled  up  the  pockets  of  the 
padre's  gown  with  such  nuggets  as  one  does  not 
see  twice  in  a  lifetime,  and  then  replaced  the  ban- 
dages and  led  him  forth.  When  the  padre  was  again 
on  his  horse,  and  the  Indian  guide  was  leading  him 
back  and  forth  in  a  manner  calculated  to  addle  any 
plan  of  location  that  might  have  been  hatching  in 
the  holy  man's  head,  he  most  piously  bethought  him- 
self of  his  rosary  and  began  to  tell  his  beads. 

At  length  the  Indian  guide,  after  winding  back 
and  forth  through  a  great  track  of  foothill  country, 
unbandaged  the  priest's  eyes. 

"  I  thank  you  for  your  gift  to  the  Holy  Church," 
said  the  good  man,  smiling  down  at  his  bulging 
pocket. 

"  Padre,  you  dropped  these,"  said  the  Indian,  re- 
storing every  bead  that  his  reverence  had  scattered 
on  his  blindfolded  way. 

249 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

There  were  other  legends  more  modern  and  less 
general.  One  of  these  told  of  a  party  of  prospectors, 
in  the  middle  seventies,  who  succeeded  in  locating 
the  mine  and  working  it  stealthily.  But  the  Indians 
knew.  Some  said  an  old  chief  rose  up  from  his 
grave  and  warned  them  that  the  white  man  had 
discovered  their  treasure,  and  with  that  discovery 
calamity  would  come  to  the  tribe, — calamity  greater 
than  it  had  ever  known. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  easy  to  blame  Indians  for 
all  the  lawlessness  in  a  frontier  community.  At  all 
events,  the  prospectors  were  found  murdered,  their 
very  cabin  was  razed  to  the  ground  and  the  timbers 
scattered,  so  that  even  the  approximate  location  of 
the  mine  should  not  be  guessed. 

A  summer  never  passed  without  bringing  hundreds 
of  prospectors  in  search  of  the  mine,  but  the  treasure 
of  that  handful  of  rapidly  dwindling  savages  was 
never  found.  Was  there  a  mine?  The  question 
had  been  asked  over  and  over.  Could  the  Indians 
have  kept  the  secret  all  these  years,  or  were  they 
enjoying  a  little  jest  at  the  white  man's  expense,  in 
return  for  many  an  old  score?  That  was  what 
Caspar  Dean  was  turning  over  in  his  shrewd  old 
head  as  he  sat  opposite  his  daughter  in  the  red 
stage  that  crawled  over  the  alkali  plains  that  hot 
afternoon. 

He  had  had  a  tip  that  a  syndicate  of  Englishmen 
had  bought  a  mine  in  the  Wind  River  Country,  and 
the  chances  were  ninety-nine  in  a  hundred  that  it 
was  the  famous  "  Lost  Shoshone."  Unlike  the  ma- 
jority of  purchases  made  by  guileless  Britons  in  the 

250 


WHERE    WORLD    LOOKS    YOUNG 

far  West,  this  syndicate  knew  nothing  of  the  re- 
puted richness  of  its  bargain.  And  Caspar  yearned 
to  buy  it  of  these  aliens  before  their  heads  should 
become  swollen  by  legends  and  the  cheerful  tales  of 
many  a  winter's  campfire. 

They  were  journeying  thither  to  interview  an 
Englishman  on  Battle  Creek,  in  whom  the  power 
of  attorney  was  reputed  to  be  vested. 

In  the  mean  time  he  looked  at  his  daughter  sitting 
opposite  him  in  the  cramped  stage,  and  felt  a  kin- 
dling parental  pride  in  that  indefinable  something 
about  her,  —  that  elusive  quality  that  was,  to  him, 
at  once  vague  and  definite,  —  the  subtle  something 
that  goes  toward  the  making  of  a  gentlewoman. 
She  wore  a  blue  linen  skirt  and  shirt  waist,  as 
plain  in  design  as  the  uniform  of  a  hospital  nurse, 
and  from  time  to  time  fanned  herself  with  the  broad 
leaf  of  a  sombrero. 

Old  Caspar  began  a  sentence  with  picturesque  pro- 
fanity, then  looked  quickly  at  his  mentor. 

"It's  the  heat,  my  dear,  it's  the  heat;  it  melts 
the  language  in  a  man,  the  presence  of  a  lady 
notwithstanding." 

"  Poor  Daddy !  it 's  been  a  trying  journey,  —  be- 
tween the  plush  of  the  Pullmans  and  the  dust  of  the 
desert,  —  but  we  '11  be  there  to-morrow." 

"  'T  ain't  that  I  'm  complainin'  on  account  of  the 
fatigue,"  and  the  old  cattleman  threw  up  his  head 
like  a  colt ;  "  that 's  a  word  I  'm  acquainted  with 
only  by  the  hearsay  of  lowing  tender  feet  full  o' 
saddle  sores  and  homesick  for  Ma's  doughnuts. 
It 's  the  heat  that  sends  my  language  out  melted, 

251 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

and  I  've  always  contended  that  to  ride  over  this 
here  desert,  a  day  like  this,  is  like  gitten  free  trans- 
portation through  —  " 

"  Purgatory,"   she  interrupted. 

"  Call  it  any  fancy  name  you  please,  daughter." 

The  dust,  full  of  biting  alkali,  drifted  across  the 
vast  waste  lands,  imposing  as  the  cloud  that  led  the 
Israelites  by  day,  but  utterly  menacing  in  effect. 
It  burned  and  reddened  the  eyes  of  the  travellers, 
and  filled  their  mouths  with  a  parched  bitterness. 
The  dusty  sagebrush  flourished  pallid  but  rankly 
luxuriant,  and  the  cacti,  spiked  and  sinister,  bloomed 
red  and  yellow  in  the  glaring  stillness. 

"  Well,  daughter,  when  God  A'mighty  made  this 
corner  of  the  world,  he  was  plumb  out  of  sorts  with 
scenery." 

The  sombrero  had  fallen  from  Alice's  hand,  and 
old  Caspar  noticed  that  she  dozed.  He  bent  over 
her  clumsily,  and  held  the  hat  so  as  to  shade  her 
eyes.  The  long  hot  afternoon  burned  itself  out 
slowly  as  a  fever,  but  the  old  man  never  changed 
his  cramped  attitude,  though  his  muscular  arm  ached 
from  the  thraldom  of  maintaining  one  position.  He 
neglected  even  to  swear  at  the  heat,  but  sat  in  the 
jostling  stage  gazing  at  his  daughter  with  something 
of  the  gratified  pride  of  young  motherhood. 

It  was  past  sunset  when  they  drew  up  at  the  road 
ranch,  —  the  crude  frontier  hostelry  that  was  to 
furnish  them  with  supper  and  a  bed.  It  was  a  rude 
shelter,  built  of  logs,  and  not  yet  submitted  to  the 
test  of  winter,  as  its  rough-hewn  edges,  still  bleed- 
ing from  the  axe,  abundantly  testified.  The  woman 

252 


WHERE   WORLD    LOOKS    YOUNG 

who  left  the  housework  that  was  never  done  and 
rushed  out  nervously  to  greet  them  was  the  usual 
feminine  product  of  frontier  drudgery  and  the  strain 
of  living  at  a  high  altitude.  She  had  cooked  three 
suppers  that  night,  and  was  in  an  agony  of  apology 
at  having  to  present  Mr.  Dean  and  his  daughter  — 
of  whose  financial  importance  she  was  fully  aware 
—  with  what  was  left.  She  reiterated  her  apologies 
and  complaints  at  the  lack  of  convenience,  —  run- 
ning on  as  inconsequently  as  the  bubbling  of  a  tea- 
kettle; and  Alice,  looking  at  the  haggard  eyes  and 
the  deep  lines  written  on  the  face  that  had  not  yet  lost 
the  down  of  adolescence,  was  reminded  of  a  hard- 
worked  piano  on  which  a  round  dozen  of  children 
have  accomplished  the  rudiments  of  music,  but  which 
responds  to  the  least  touch,  shrill  and  clattering. 

Old  Caspar  spent  the  evening  with  the  top-booted, 
sombrero-crowned  group  who  lounged  and  smoked 
about  the  front  door.  He  shone  by  reflected  glory 
that  evening;  he  was  the  father  of  a  stunning  girl 
who  had  just  come  back  from  Europe  and  had  n't 

married  a  blanky  dash  title,  by .  And  stunning 

girls  were  scarce  in  that  country,  where  the  refining 
influence  of  women  was  confined  chiefly  to  a  few 
migratory  squaws  and  the  ladies  of  the  dance-halls. 

Alice  remained  with  her  hostess  in  the  kitchen. 
There  was  bread  to  set,  and  innumerable  prepara- 
tions to  be  made  for  the  breakfast  that  would  be 
served  at  sunrise;  and  the  ranch  chatelaine  com- 
plained so  pitifully  about  the  dearth  of  feminine 
companionship,  and  asked  so  persistently  what  kind 
of  hats  they  wore  in  Europe,  that  Alice  devoted  the 

253 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

evening  to  describing  the  European  hat,  and  listen- 
ing to  her  hostess  give  vent  to  her  one  gnawing  am- 
bition, which  was  to  have  a  plush  parlour  set  from 
Omaha. 

Next  morning  they  were  in  the  saddle  by  six 
o'clock,  wending  their  way  toward  the  snowy  peaks 
of  the  Wind  River  Mountains  that  stretched  away  in 
serpentine  outline  and  finally  melted  into  the  deep 
blue  of  a  cloudless  sky.  Alice  listened  to  the  "  chug, 
chug  "  of  the  sweating  horses,  and  wished  the  dis- 
tance were  no  further  than  it  looked;  but  a  good 
thirty-five-mile  ride  lay  before  them,  and  miles  in 
that  country  of  unlimited  space  are  measured  with 
a  prodigal  hand.  As  they  wound  higher  and  higher 
among  the  foothills,  nature  laid  aside  the  stern  aspect 
she  had  worn  in  the  desert.  In  the  sweltering  heat 
of  Box  Canon  —  some  called  it  Hell's  Pit  —  she 
played  the  tragic  muse,  wrapping  herself  in  the  trap- 
pings of  woe,  hiding  her  face  in  a  veil  of  alkaline 
dust.  But  here,  far  from  the  desert  and  the  parched 
foothills,  she  wore  the  gladsome  raiment  of  summer, 
the  buffalo  grass  was  green  and  moist,  the  mountain 
streams,  fed  from  breasts  of  snow,  purled  with  liquid 
crystal. 

Yet  the  days  of  summer  were  numbered;  you 
read  it  in  the  hectic  flush  that  burned  upon  her  cheek. 
The  rose-berries  along  the  creek  glowed  more  scar- 
let than  drops  of  blood,  the  ox-eyed  daisies  were 
yellower  than  a  miser's  treasure,  the  cacti  flamed  out 
its  little  span,  —  it  was  the  last  flush  of  midsummer 
carnival,  the  last  glow  before  the  long,  cold,  wintry 
sleep;  already  the  clematis  that  climbed  in  and  out 

254 


WHERE    WORLD    LOOKS   YOUNG 

among  the  cottonwoods  had  faded;    it  hung  but  an 
ashen  feathery  wraith  of  its  white  bridal  beauty. 

Every  few  miles  brought  its  welcome  change  of 
scene.  Sometimes  the  broad-backed  sheep  cropping 
the  close  buffalo  grass  robbed  the  picture  of  its  wild- 
ness,  their  plaintive  bleating  breaking  a  silence  that 
seemed  to  throb  as  with  the  vibrations  of  sound. 
The  swaying  pines  might  have  been  chanting  the 
opening  verses  of  Genesis,  so  big,  so  majestically 
simple  was  their  country;  its  whole  history  might 
have  been  written  in :  "  And  the  evening  and  the 
morning  were  the  second  day." 

With  the  lengthening  of  the  shadows  on  the  moun- 
tain, Alice  felt  her  old  melancholy  steal  upon  her  like 
an  enemy  from  ambush.  The  sun  had  sunk  to  rest 
behind  the  tallest  mountain  peak,  and  already  the  pil- 
fering clouds  were  contending  for  his  splendid  ves- 
ture, rending  the  crimson  and  gold  among  themselves, 
flaunting  the  coveted  glory,  snatching  right  and  left, 
losing,  gaining,  till  the  west  glowed  in  wanton  rev- 
elry and  the  peaceful  shadows  hid,  past  their  time, 
in  the  valleys. 

But  the  wistful  twilight  was  at  hand  with  its  troop 
of  vague  longings,  —  shadowy  things,  of  no  more 
substance  than  a  sigh,  but  real  as  flesh  and  blood 
when  marshalled  in  battle  array.  Alice  felt  that  she 
was  seeing  her  little  world  epitomised.  She  and  her 
father,  travelling  alone  through  this  vast  wild  coun- 
try, —  he  to  make  his  bargains,  that  were  as  the 
breath  of  life  to  him;  she  to  sniff  at  the  bargain  in 
regard  to  which  she  was  developing  a  querulously 
sensitive  nostril;  neither  understanding  the  other, 

255 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

the  greater  strangers  for  their  closer  tie,  but  each 
making  the  best  of  things,  and  feeling  some  pride 
in  the  other. 

"  Say,  Alice,  I  'm  allowin'  to  myself  that  this  yere 
Britisher  we  're  after  burrows  himself  away  in  the 
scenery  with  the  shyness  of  a  prairie  dog.  We 
oughter  sighted  his  cabin  by  now." 

"  He  knows  you  are  after  his  mine,  Daddy;  he's 
gone  to  hide." 

"  'T  ain't  his;  he  just  watches  it  t'  see  it  don't 
run  off,  —  we  do  our  primitive  dickerin'  with  him 
just  to  keep  up  the  formalities." 

Old  Caspar  brought  his  plainsman's  experience  to 
bear  on  a  pin-prick  in  the  landscape  that  he  hoped 
would  prove  to  be  the  cabin  in  question. 

"  That 's  his  shack,  but  he  's  away  from  home,  or 
eatin'  a  cold  supper,"  he  announced,  after  a  few 
moments'  scrutiny. 

"How  do  you  make  that  out?" 

"  No  smoke  in  his  chimney." 

And  they  urged  on  their  drooping  horses  with  the 
impetus  of  travellers  whose  goal  is  in  sight. 

It  needed  but  a  casual  glance  to  convince  them 
that  the  object  of  their  quest  was  not  the  sketchy 
makeshift  the  frontiersman  builds  as  inconsequently 
as  a  house  of  cards.  It  was  as  rudely  neat  of  aspect  as 
the  little  wooden  houses  old-fashioned  Noah's  Arks 
used  to  boast  in  those  benighted  days  when  little 
folk  had  not  the  consolations  of  "  real "  sewing-ma- 
chines and  "  real  "  refrigerators.  It  was  finished  as 
neatly  as  a  lady's  slipper,  and  it  wore  its  stone  chim- 
ney as  coquettishly  as  a  high  heel. 

256 


WHERE   WORLD    LOOKS    YOUNG 

"  Judas  Iscariot !  "  blandly  remarked  old  Caspar, 
"  if  he  knows  as  much  about  mines  as  he  does  about 
building  a  shack,  '  The  Lost  Shoshone '  's  as  good  as 
in  —  in,  well,  anywheres  but  my  pocket." 

The  windows  were  open,  and  Alice  could  make 
out  the  interior  neatly  ceiled  with  some  dark  wood. 
Caspar's  repeated  halloaing  brought  no  response. 
He  put  his  shoulder  against  the  door,  but  it  refused 
to  yield  an  inch. 

"  Suspicious,  tea-swillin'  Britisher,  d'  you  think 
a  white  man  'd  lock  up  his  shanty  in  a  country  where 
there 's  more  blamed  snow-capped  mountains  than 
chairs?  No,  miss,  an  American  would  have  left  his 
door  open,  and  run  his  chances  on  the  escape  of  his 
canned  tomatters." 

"  Dear  Daddy,  I  'm  thankful  enough  for  the  door- 
step ; "  and  Alice  sank  down  with  the  willingness  of 
fatigue  to  accommodate  itself  to  circumstances. 

"  I  '11  hobble  the  horses  and  turn  'em  loose  before 
he  gets  back  to  begrutch  the  grass." 

Alice  took  off  her  hat,  grateful  for  the  cooling 
breeze  at  her  temples. 

The  stark  landscape,  —  rearing  mountains  shelv- 
ing down  to  crouching  foothills,  then  space,  vast, 
illimitable  as  the  ocean,  but  tranquil  as  untroubled 
sleep.  It  was  the  epic  of  creation  told  in  splen- 
did numbers.  The  soul  of  the  night  began  to  stir 
in  the  wilderness;  through  endless  repetition  of 
serried  mountain  file,  marching  in  white-capped  mo- 
notony, it  moved  from  peak  to  peak.  Then  to  the 
waste  lands,  where  desolation  melts  into  desolation, 
and  the  scroll  of  space  is  never  unrolled.  It  stirred 

17  257 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

among  the  foothills  —  herding  close  as  beasts  in  fear 
of  darkness  —  and  their  great  sides  seemed  to  heave 
in  answer  to  its  coming.  Parched  "  Hell's  Pit "  felt 
the  thrill  of  it,  and  forgot  its  aching  thirst,  its 
thorned  crown  of  cactus,  and  the  bitter  taste  of 
alkali.  The  spirit  of  the  night  brooded  long  and 
tenderly  over  this  undiscovered  world,  then  gath- 
ered it  softly  in  a  long  embrace. 

The  spoils  of  sunset  had  been  divided;  the  clouds 
moved  stealthily  now,  holding  fast  to  their  shreds 
of  splendour,  and  the  blackness  bit  deeper  into  the 
red,  etching  out  grotesque  pictures,  —  a  shifting 
panorama  of  dream  things,  filing  across  the  night 
in  fantastic  procession.  It  was  not  the  marching 
mountains,  nor  the  pictures  in  the  coals  of  sunset, 
nor  the  sweeping  space  that  gave  to  the  on-coming 
night  the  strangeness  of  other  spheres,  but  the  silence 
—  it  fairly  sang,  attuning  its  choral  imploration  to 
the  soul  that  listens.  Allegro,  penseroso,  —  there  is 
all  music  in  the  silence  of  those  desert  nights. 

Alice,  with  hat  cast  aside,  sat  in  the  doorway  of 
the  cabin,  listening  with  hurrying  pulses  to  the 
music  of  the  singing  stillness.  Now  it  is  like  the 
roll  of  some  great  cathedral  organ  echoing  through 
vaulted  arches;  now  it  fades  away  to  the  plaintive 
shrilling  of  a  pipe,  —  Pan's,  perhaps.  And  perad- 
venture  a  naked  goddess  will  steal  by  in  the  twilight, 
and  a  satyr  leer  from  the  grove.  What  may  not 
happen  where  the  world  still  pulses  in  her  hoyden 
youth  ? 

What  may  not  happen  —  but  Alice  hoped  for  no 
quarter  from  the  unexpected.  She  hoped  not  at  all, 

258 


WHERE   WORLD    LOOKS    YOUNG 

but  gave  herself  to  the  tranquillising  influence  of 
night,  and  of  the  great  still  stars  of  that  undiscov- 
ered country,  whose  gaze  is  steady  and  steadying. 

Again  the  silence  took  up  the  thread  of  song; 
now  a  homely  theme,  —  a  bit  of  folk  lore  turned 
into  a  ballad,  —  Alingham  and  she  had  heard  a 
Scotch  sailor  sing  it  on  the  "  Calabria  "  when  they 
first  knew  each  other.  Its  rueful  rhythm  knit  up  the 
intervening  years,  and  dreamfully  she  again  lived 
through  the  wonder  of  that  first  awakening. 

It  grew  dark  in  the  valleys  and  on  the  moun- 
tains, —  only  the  embers  of  sunset  burned  dim  as  a 
neglected  fire.  A  strange  disquieting  joy  stirred  at 
her  heart,  —  was  it  the  music  of  the  wilderness 
stirring  her  memory,  like  wind  in  tall  pine-trees? 
Was  it  the  star-strewn  night  whose  beauty  racked 
and  tormented,  then  bewitched  with  subtle  sorcery? 

Life  seemed  to  call  her,  there,  down  the  valley, 
where  the  purple  shadows  were  vague  and  formless, 
and  all  her  youth  rose  up  to  make  glad  answer; 
but  youth  calls  to  youth,  and  there  came  back  to  her 
only  the  whisper  of  the  pines  and  the  music  of  the 
world  primeval. 

Her  thoughts  went  back  to  that  evening  in  early 
summer  when  she  had  come  up  from  Devonshire 
to  be  diverted  with  frivolity,  and  finding  herself 
alone  in  the  house,  had  sat  by  an  open  window  and 
heard  the  small  thin  voice  call  to  her  above  all  the 
din  of  London.  There  were  family  traditions  of  a 
Scotch  grandmother  who  had  had  the  gift  of  second 
sight,  and  Alice  wondered  if  she  had  inherited  some 
variation  of  this  doubtful  advantage.  Her  premoni- 

259 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

tions  made  eerie  company  at  times,  company  of  which 
it  was  difficult  to  rid  one's  self. 

She  tried  to  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  the  voice  from  the 
valley;  she  tried  to  stay  the  tumultuous  beating  of 
her  heart,  but  the  music  of  the  singing  stillness 
rang  only  the  more  joyously.  It  swelled  into  exul- 
tant crescendos,  —  chords  vibrant  with  anticipation 
echoed  down  through  valley,  crag,  and  canon,  — 
every  voice  in  that  choir  invisible  seemed  to  burst 
into  hallelujahs  of  his  coming. 

She  got  up  and  walked  down  the  pathway  that 
led  to  the  valley  where  the  purple  shadows  over- 
lapped. She  reached  out  her  hands  to  the  darkness 
that  seemed  to  brim  with  his  presence,  his  voice,  his 
laughter,  the  way  he  spoke  her  name;  her  groping 
arms  moved  about  for  the  man  and  the  love  that 
called  her. 

And  from  the  valley  came  Alingham,  swinging  up 
the  path  with  the  same  soldierly  tread  that  she  could 
never  see  without  a  momentary  suspension  of  the 
beating  of  the  heart. 

Oh,  the  world  is  a  wide,  wide  place,  but  love  has 
mastered  the  trick  of  laughing  at  more  things  than 
locksmiths;  time  and  space  and  place  are  just  a 
few  of  them.  Her  hand  went  to  his,  straight  as  a 
homing  bird,  —  her  hand  that  held  the  secret  of 
her  personality  in  fee,  —  warm,  elastic,  trembling 
with  eagerness  to  give  a  hundredfold  its  woman's 
tenderness. 

They  feared  to  look  into  each  other's  eyes,  lest 
dim  twilight  shadows  should  lurk  there  in  mock- 
ing emptiness.  Was  it  real,  this  meeting  in  the 

260 


WHERE   WORLD    LOOKS    YOUNG 

wilderness,  or  only  the  hungry  yearning  for  each 
other's  presence?  Yet  her  hand  fluttered  in  his, 
warm  as  a  nesting  bird,  each  loath  to  break  the 
clasp  that  spanned  the  weary  void.  He  hardly  dared 
breathe  her  name;  it  was  as  if  his  insatiate  desire 
to  see  her  again  had  wrought  her  image  here,  in  the 
wilderness,  and  at  a  word  it  might  steal  away  with 
the  shadows.  She  could  not  be  real;  it  was  only  a 
trick  of  slow-consuming  longing  that  had  fixed  her 
here  'twixt  him  and  that  black  gaping  solitude,  — 
fixed  her  with  the  skill  of  sun,  lens,  and  plate,  down 
to  the  littlest  curl. 

"  Most  dear,"  he  said,  "  tell  me  you  are  not  a  wraith 
of  loneliness ;  tell  me  you  won't  end  like  a  dream  and 
leave  only  the  grey  morning,  the  darkness,  or  the 
sun  and  silence  of  this  wilderness." 

She  raised  her  eyes  to  his  for  the  fraction  of  a 
second,  then  looked  away  down  the  valley  where  the 
shadows  wrapped  the  vague  spaces  sombrely. 

The  eyes  he  caught  glimpse  of  were  no  dream- 
eyes  ;  on  that  he  would  have  staked  his  highest  hopes, 
and  they  were  towering  just  then. 

"  Most  dear,"  he  said,  "  you  have  not  told  me ; 
is  it  a  dream  ?  " 

Again  she  raised  her  eyes,  but  this  time  full  of 
challenging  banter  that  gave  no  hint  of  the  perilous 
racing  of  her  heart. 

"  You  have  n't  told  me,"  he  persisted. 

"  Told  you  what  ?  "  she  answered. 

"  Whether  it 's  a  dream  or  not." 

"  The  proof  of  the  dream  lies  in  the  pinching, 
you  know." 

261 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

"  Of  course  it  does,"  agreed  Alingham ;  "  but  if 
I  am  dreaming  how  can  I  be  certain  about  the  pinch  ? 
Would  it  be  a  real  pinch,  or  just  a  dream  pinch?  " 

It  was  dark  as  a  chasm  on  the  mountain;  you 
could  not  possibly  have  seen  the  two  little  white 
finger-marks  that  presently  glowed  on  the  ruddy 
cheek  of  the  Briton. 

"Are  you  convinced?"  she  questioned. 

"  Ah  —  unless  it  is  a  particularly  vicious  ghost." 

"  Has  n't  it  been  a  beautiful  evening?  "  she  asked, 
trying  to  inject  the  conventional  note  into  a  situa- 
tion that  threatened  to  be  a  trifle  overwhelming. 

"  The  most  beautiful  of  '  all  the  glad  new  year ' 
to  me,"  he  answered,  hoping  the  conventional  note 
would  stay  where  it  belonged,  —  a  thousand  miles 
hence. 

"  I  meant  the  sunset,"  she  affirmed  with  a  fine 
disinterestedness. 

"  I  should  be  the  last  to  object  to  it,"  he  assured 
her. 

"The  landscape,  just  a  trifle  bleak?"  she  ques- 
tioned with  a  fine  showing  of  eyelid. 

"  Never,  with  such  a  figure  in  the  foreground," 
he  bowed  to  her. 

And  then  they  heard  old  Caspar  calling  "  Alice," 
and  there  was  scarce  time  to  assume  the  role  of 
casual  acquaintanceship.  Perhaps  it  was  too  false 
a  part  to  be  well  played,  or  maybe  such  radiant 
countenances  could  not  deceive  so  close  an  observer 
as  old  Caspar,  —  at  all  events,  he  looked  from  one 
to  the  other,  perturbed,  anxious,  conscious,  too,  of 
the  gnawing  fangs  of  jealousy.  How  does  a  father 

262 


WHERE   WORLD    LOOKS    YOUNG 

look  when  confronted  by  the  indisputable  rival  of 
chance  circumstance? 

"  Father,  I  knew  this  gentleman  in  England ;  he 
is  a  friend  of  mine." 

" 'Tain't  Henry  Cat,  is  it?"  demanded  Caspar, 
slightly  humping  his  shoulders. 

"  No,  it 's  not  Henri  Quatre." 

:<  You  seemed  so  partickilar  blame  glad  to  see  him, 
thought  maybe  it  was." 

Embarrassment  now  threatened  to  wreck  the  little 
company  playing  at  casual  acquaintances. 

"  My  name  is  Alingham,"  and  his  lordship  blushed 
as  if  there  had  been  felony  in  the  admission;  but 
there  was  fine  courtesy  in  the  way  he  extended  his 
hand,  against  which  even  churlishness  found  it  diffi- 
cult to  contend. 

"  Mister  Alingham,"  old  Caspar  made  the  most 
of  the  syllables,  flinging  them  back  as  so  many  mis- 
siles, "  since  you  seem  to  have  staked  out  your 
claim  in  my  daughter's  acquaintance,  there  is  noth- 
ing left  but  for  me  to  stake  out  mine  in  yours.  Me 
and  her  has  the  same  outfit  of  friends." 

The  old  man  offered  his  hand  as  if  he  were  show- 
ing off  the  tricks  of  some  thoroughly  trusty  weapon. 

But  the  imp  of  constraint  made  merry  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  trio.  The  serpent  had  entered  Eden, 
—neither  Alice,  her  father,  nor  Alingham  would  now 
have  had  the  courage  to  maintain  even  that  there 
had  been  an  exceptionally  fine  sunset.  Miss  Dean 
lost  no  time  in  turning  the  talk  into  the  wake  of  the 
"  Lost  Shoshone ;  "  her  sensitive  ear  detected  the 
far-off  rumble  of  thunder  in  more  personal  topics. 

263 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

But  the  mine,  as  a  subject  for  healing  discourse, 
proved  as  elusive  as  its  own  location ;  Alingham  had 
merely  held  the  power  of  attorney  pending  the  arrival 
of  her  owners  from  England;  they  could  be  seen  at 
Bingham,  the  next  town;  he  (Alingham)  was  un- 
certain as  to  their  intentions,  but  rather  fancied  they 
did  not  care  to  sell. 

Old  Caspar  would  have  started  immediately  for 
Bingham  had  the  horses  been  capable  of  resuming 
their  journey  after  such  brief  respite,  but,  this  being 
manifestly  impossible,  Alice  and  her  father  accepted 
Alingham' s  invitation  to  supper,  —  in  fact,  there  was 
no  other  alternative,  —  and  concluded  to  resume  their 
saddles  when  the  moon  should  rise,  somewhere  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  midnight. 

Like  the  knight  in  the  ballad,  Alingham  would 
have  cheerfully  wrung  the  neck  of  his  sole  com- 
panion —  the  jackdaw  —  to  furnish  the  board  for 
his  lady's  entertainment.  But  when  it  came  to  prof- 
fering his  hospitality  for  the  night,  the  dismal  ex- 
pedients that  confronted  him  on  every  side  prevented 
him  from  urging  that  which  he  would  have  preferred 
to  a  premiership.  The  road  ranch  that  was  barely 
ten  miles  beyond  would,  in  all  probability,  offer  no 
more  comforts  than  his  own  cabin,  but  old  Caspar 
yearned  for  the  goal  that  would  put  him  nearer  his 
bargain,  and  Alingham  lacked  the  courage  to  urge 
his  own  poor  claim  as  host. 

Alice  was  having  rather  a  bad  quarter  of  an  hour 
examining  her  pride,  —  the  maidenly  barometer 
which  answered  all  the  practical  purposes  of  a  con- 
science. Why  had  she  let  him  see  she  was  so  abso- 

264 


WHERE   WORLD    LOOKS   YOUNG 

lutely  and  unfeignedly  glad  to  see  him?  why,  why, 
and  again  why?  Men  were  to  be  received  with  a 
cordiality  in  inverse  ratio  to  one's  pleasure  or  in- 
difference at  seeing  them.  Else  why  the  delectable 
game  of  cat-and-mouse,  most  perfect  of  all  feminine 
accomplishments?  She  could  not  tell  which  she 
wanted  more,  to  punish  him  by  going  or  to  please 
herself  by  staying,  —  in  other  words,  a  lady  may 
not  have  her  sentimental  cake  and  eat  it.  Thus 
reasoned  Miss  Dean  with  a  trifle  more  eyelid  in 
evidence  than  usual. 

A  dawning  perception  of  the  realities  contrived 
to  burst  the  soap-bubble  that  Alingham  had  been 
taking  quite  seriously  for  the  world.  And  even 
while  he  made  himself  agreeable,  in  a  somewhat 
hollow  fashion,  —  which  was  indeed  the  best  of  his 
ability,  —  imps  of  inner  consciousness  grimly  re- 
minded him  that  he  was  still  a  bankrupt  who  fre- 
quently dined  on  philosophy  when  a  chance  shot 
failed  to  furnish  forth  the  camp  larder. 

He  assured  himself  that  he  had  been  a  fool,  an 
ass,  and  other  compliments  of  the  season  of  foolish 
confiding.  If  he  had  had  the  least  intimation  of 
this  most  amazing  meeting,  —  if  it  had  been  any- 
where but  in  this  naked  and  unashamed  wilderness 
that  mocked  at  convention  and  made  of  love  just  a 
simple  solving  of  Life's  riddle,  —  he  would  not  have 
said  what  he  had  not  the  right  to  say.  Oh,  a  civi- 
lised pavement  beneath  a  man's  feet  is  a  fine  curb 
on  those  mad  fledglings  of  heart  and  brain  that  fly 
before  they  have  learned  to  think. 

"  But  what  could  she  expect/'  Alingham  alone,  in 
*  '  36$ 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

his  al  fresco  kitchen,  apostrophised  the  jack-rabbit 
he  had  just  finished  skinning,  "  coming  across  a  man, 
out  here,  in  this  illustrated-Old-Testament  sort  of 
a  country  —  it  might  be  the  identical  spot  where 
Adam  and  Eve  began  housekeeping,  mightn't  it?" 
and  the  jack-rabbit  did  not  contradict.  "  I  maintain 
the  situation  is  grotesque  in  the  twentieth  century," 
he  continued,  neatly  cutting  up  his  confidant.  "  We 
ought  to  have  lived  in  the  Ruth  and  Boaz  period, 
and  her  father  and  I  should  have  amicably  discussed 
the  number  of  camels  requisite  to  our  station  of  life. 
But  —  why  is  there  always  a  but  when  a  man  's  in 
love  ?  —  I  have  n't  any  camels." 

And  now  occurred  one  of  those  absurd  situations 
that  men  and  women  frequently  bring  about  through 
a  desire  to  ignore  the  irrevocable  word,  look,  or 
hand-clasp  that  has  a  trick  of  writing  itself  in  let- 
ters of  fire  when  all  parties  concerned  are  least  in 
favour  of  illumination. 

Alingham,  smarting  under  the  triple  burden  of 
bankruptcy,  Alice's  wealth,  and  the  memory  of  his 
sordid  proposal  to  Mrs.  Gordon  at  Dunstan,  would 
have  given  his  right  hand  to  recall  what  had  been 
fairly  wrested  from  him  by  "  the  diabolical  land- 
scape." He  did  not  lack  terms  to  describe  those 
hapless  mountains. 

And  while  he  prepared  his  jack-rabbits  and  ex- 
coriated what  he  had  said,  looked,  done,  and  the 
country,  time,  place  that  had  led  him  to  say  and  do 
it,  Alice  was  deciding  how  she  could  offer  to  assist 
in  the  preparation  of  supper,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
convince  him  that  her  apparent  delight  at  seeing  him, 

266 


WHERE  WORLD    LOOKS   YOUNG 

a  few  moments  since,  was,  in  reality,  nothing  more 
substantial  than  a  bit  of  very  pretty  acting. 

And  so  there  was  a  splendid  aloofness  about  the 
very  swing  of  her  skirts  as  she  swept  into  the  room 
and  offered  her  services.  She  might  have  been  say- 
ing: "  My  good  man,  tell  me  where  you  keep  your 
hemlock  and  I  '11  not  only  brew  you  a  draught  but 
hold  the  cup  to  your  lips."  What  she  realty  said 
was: 

"  We  are  making  you  a  tremendous  amount  of 
trouble.  If  you  will  tell  me  where  you  keep  the 
knives  and  things,  I  '11  set  the  table." 

"  Er  —  I  should  be  delighted,"  he  said,  relapsing 
into  his  most  elegant  Mayfair  accents,  "  but  there 
are  n't  any." 

And  she,  to  hide  her  confusion  at  bolting  into  his 
poverty-stricken  expedients,  blurted  out: 

"  And,  pray,  how  do  you  eat  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  conform  to  the  customs  of  the  coun- 
try," he  said  with  his  best  London  obeisance.  "  The 
knife  is  still  a  comparatively  unknown  implement  to 
me."  Then  he  remembered  that  in  all  probability 
her  father  was  no  stranger  to  this  west-country  art, 
and  the  last  condition  of  his  predicament  was  worse 
than  the  first. 

Alingham,  with  the  furtive  embarrassment  of  a 
school-boy  who  has  drawn  a  prize  at  least  five  years 
too  young  for  him,  produced  a  flat  pine  box,  coquet- 
tishly  striped  in  red,  and  bearing  the  inscription 
"  Friendship's  offering."  The  lid  of  this  treasure 
trove,  on  being  pushed  back,  disclosed  a  solitary 
knife,  a  pewter  fork  and  spoon,  which  comprised 

267 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

the  camp's  best  plate,  the  couple  of  unmatched 
knives  and  forks  about  the  mess-box  being  abso- 
lutely disreputable. 

"  Would  you  mind  using  these,  Miss  Dean?  "  and 
he  proffered  "  Friendship's  offering "  tentatively. 

She  tried  to  relieve  the  strain  of  the  situation  by 
a  jest,  but  the  little  box  of  cutlery  was  so  ruthless 
in  its  stern  simplicity  she  could  only  take  it,  and 
sink  deeper  in  the  quicksands  of  abashed  silence. 

They  were  like  rival  cooks  working  together  under 
protest,  each  absorbed  in  a  frenzy  of  preoccupation 
that  almost  excluded  knowledge  of  each  other's  pres- 
ence. Alingham  broiled  his  rabbits,  Alice  made 
biscuits  and  coffee,  as  if  it  had  been  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world  that  they  should  be  cook- 
ing supper  together,  —  so  natural,  indeed,  that  both 
were  a  trifle  bored  at  the  ceremony. 

And  presently  they  sat  down  to  a  meal  that 
Alingham  characterised  to  himself  as  "  fried  funeral 
meats."  For  though  his  lady  was  sitting  at  his 
table  and  her  hat  hung  on  the  adjoining  peg  to  his 
in  a  fashion  at  once  intimate  and  distracting,  yet 
she  had  never  seemed  so  remote  —  not  even  in  those 
seasons  of  loneliness  when  he  had  wandered  through 
these  mountain  passes  and  thought  her  on  the  other 
side  of  the  world.  For  then  not  all  the  miles  nor 
all  the  men  in  Christendom  could  take  from  him  the 
memory  of  that  first  tender  flowering  of  her  whole 
nature,  that  had  seemed  to  endow  him  with  some- 
thing of  the  powers  of  a  magician.  But  here  she 
sat  in  the  flesh,  aloof,  inaccessible,  —  robbing  him, 
by  her  very  reality,  of  that  dream-companion  who 

268 


WHERE   WORLD    LOOKS    YOUNG 

wandered  with  him  far  and  wide  through  the  wil- 
derness, and  sometimes  mocked  and  sometimes  teased, 
but  who  was  his  always,  indisputably  his,  beyond  the 
powers  of  gods  and  men  to  put  asunder. 

Old  Caspar  looked  from  one  to  the  other.  He 
was  not  deceived  by  the  edifice  of  indifference  each 
was  building  so  conscientiously ;  he  knew  that  lovers 
build  that  sort  of  structure,  as  children  build  houses 
of  cards  for  the  pure  joy  of  sweeping  them  down. 
But  the  savour  had  gone  out  of  his  prospective  bar- 
gain, and  when  he  thought  of  sharing  his  daughter 
with  this  stranger,  this  man  of  chance  circumstance, 
he  felt  cheated,  robbed,  angry  beyond  the  consola- 
tions of  profanity. 

Alingham  told  of  the  Musgrove  expedition,  the 
year  in  the  Klondike  that  had  been  fruitful  only  in 
hardship  and  experience,  and  finally,  how  he  had 
stopped  off  in  this  far  corner  of  the  world  to  see 
some  fellow  countrymen  and  shoot  antelope,  and 
then  lingered  on,  year  after  year,  trapping  in  winter, 
hunting  and  fishing  in  summer,  and  finding  the  life 
interesting  at  all  seasons.  Alice  made  duty  inquiries 
for  his  family.  They  were  well.  But  Dunstan  had 
been  sold;  in  fact,  he  believed  it  had  been  turned 
into  some  sort  of  hydropathic  institution. 

"And  Mr.  Howard?"  she  asked. 

"  Reggie,  poor  old  Uncle  Reggie,  —  the  family 
are  much  worried  over  him.  He  has  already  an- 
nounced his  intention  of  marrying  a  girl  of  seven- 
teen. She  was  in  a  hat-shop.  It  is  really  too  bad; 
the  poor  old  boy  is  quite  in  his  dotage." 

The  men  smoked  after  supper,  chiefly  in  silence. 
269 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

Alice  caressed  the  ears  of  an  old  setter  who  made 
good  his  place  in  the  family  circle  by  reason  of  a 
thing  or  two  he  knew  about  finding  birds.  To  Alice 
shorn  of  her  coquetry,  and  Alingham  shorn  of  his 
hope,  the  marvel  of  their  meeting  was  but  the  cul- 
mination of  fate's  stupid  jest  of  five  years  ago;  a 
feeling  of  helplessness  held  all  their  senses  in  thrall 
and  made  it  possible  for  them  to  say  good-bye  with 
something  akin  to  resignation  to  the  inevitable. 

It  was  past  eleven  when  Caspar  and  his  daughter 
rode  down  the  valley;  the  moon  sailed  high  over 
the  white  peaks,  —  a  stringless  kite  with  all  the 
world  for  its  wanderings.  Neither  spoke  till  they 
were  well  down  the  path,  which  was  steep  and 
treacherously  uneven.  Alice  noticed  that  after  Aling- 
ham had  helped  her  on  her  horse  and  said  good- 
bye to  her,  her  father  injected  a  little  cordiality 
into  his  manner ;  never  had  she  seen  him  so  churlish. 

Old  Dean  cleared  his  throat.  "  A  friend  of  yours, 
in  England,  you  said.  I  hoped  as  much  from  the 
way  you  giv'  him  your  hand.  Yes,  miss,  when  a  girl 
gives  a  man  her  hand  as  if  she  was  pawning  it, 
why,  any  one  who  don't  belong  to  the  Grand  High 
Chapter  o'  Partickilar  Blame  Fools  kin  see  she 's 
a  friend  o'  his." 

Alice  cantered  a  bit  ahead.  "  Dear  father,"  she 
said,  with  something  very  like  a  sob  in  her  voice, 
"  don't  you  see  it 's  all  over?  Please  don't  speak  of 
it.  Had  I  known  he  was  there,  I  would  not  have 
come  with  you." 

"  Is  he  married  ?  "  and  old  Caspar  jerked  up  his 
horse  so  suddenly  as  to  succeed  almost  in  dismount- 
ing himself. 


WHERE  WORLD    LOOKS    YOUNG 

"  No  —  of  course  not." 

"  Then  why  in  —  in  the  name  of  this  everlastin' 
blue  scenery  ain't  you  good  enough  for  a  busted 
Lord  —  gettin'  his  living  out  'n  the  landscape,  like 
a  coyote  ?  " 

"  Father,"  she  bridled,  "  you  know  he  's  dropped 
his  title,  and  calls  himself  plain  Mr.  Alingham." 

"  I  wager  you  don't  call  him  plain  Mr.  Alingham. 
I  wager  you  call  him  handsome  enough  for  a  — 
wall-paper." 

"  Oh,  Daddy,  let 's  change  the  subject,"  she  said 
with  something  very  like  petulance. 

"  I  don't  think  he  's  a  bad  sort  of  a  subject ;  there 
don't  appear  to  be  anything  ag'in  him,  except  he 
seems  to  be  of  a  gentle,  roominatin'  turn  of  mind." 

Alice  appeared  to  be  giving  her  undivided  atten- 
tion to  her  horse. 

"  If  that 's  his  natchur,  I  don't  know  as  there  's 
much  use  in  any  woman's  takin'  him  off  'n  the  range 
an'  try  in'  to  domesticate  him,  —  range  cattle  don't 
make  good  household  pets."  He  wheeled  about  in 
his  saddle  and  looked  at  her  searchingly.  "  But  if 
he  's  took  to  roominatin'  on  account  of  a  purticular 
girl,  I  don't  say  but  he  '11  wear  his  bell  and  ribbon 
same  as  any  other  man." 

There  was  a  slight  suggestion  of  frost  in  his 
daughter's  voice  as  she  answered: 

"  Really,  Daddy,  I  never  heard  of  a  man  taking 
to  the  wilderness  on  account  of  love,  outside  of  a 
novel.  Lord  Alingham  stays  in  the  mountains,  I 
believe,  because  he  likes  to  kill  things." 

"  Well,  p'r'aps  he  does,  my  dear,  but  it 's  been 
1271 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

done.  Look  at  that  pore  young  Frenchman  that 
named  them  mountains  Coeur  d'Alene  after  the  girl 
that  went  back  on  him,  —  honourin'  her  with  a  place 
in  American  joggraphy." 

"  I  am  certainly  not  eligible  to  a  place  in  the 
geography  on  those  grounds,  Daddy." 

They  rode  along  in  silence  for  a  mile  or  more; 
then  old  Caspar,  who  had  apparently  been  turning 
over  something  in  his  mind,  said: 

"  Marriage,  my  dear,  is  like  any  other  bargain,  — 
you  want  to  start  in  plumb  carried  away  with  your 
investment.  You  need  all  the  glory  to  look  back  on 
when  you  see  something  else  that  seems  a  heap  more 
gilt-edged  —  and  such  occasions  do  arise  in  the  best- 
regulated  of  households.  An'  then  what  saves  the 
family  waggon,  and  brings  it  through  the  ruts  and 
gullies,  but  remembering  what  you  Ve  been  through 
with  the  other  old  horse  in  the  harness  ?  " 

"But,  father  —  " 

"  I  ain't  done  yet.  Sometimes  it  seems  like  mar- 
riage is  a  slouchy  sort  of  a  job,  but  such  as  it  is, 
there  don't  seem  to  be  any  improvement  on  it.  As 
it  stands,  it  is  the  physic  of  society,  and  sometimes 
physic  is  palatable  and  sometimes  it  ain't." 

"  But,  father,  why  all  this  long  argument  in  favour 
of  something  of  which  there  is  not  the  remotest  possi- 
bility? A  few  minutes  ago  you  were  quite  out  of 
patience  with  this  young  man  and  me  for  shaking 
hands;  now  you  appear  to  be  urging  a  suit  which 
he  himself  has  never  urged." 

Old  Caspar  noted  the  tear  tremolo,  and  pressed 
the  subject  no  further.  The  road  ranch  which  they 

272 


WHERE  WORLD    LOOKS    YOUNG 

reached  after  much  similar  discourse,  for  the  old 
cattleman  was  at  all  times  the  most  voluble  of  com- 
panions, was  like  the  majority  of  its  frontier  fellows, 
—  rough-hewn,  and  rude  as  a  magpie's  nest  But 
Alice  was  unconscious  of  the  house,  the  room,  the 
frowsy  hostess,  in  the  sketchy  costume  that  com- 
bined day  and  night  garments  with  expedience  and 
frankness.  She  knew  only  that  he  was  there  down 
the  road  and  over  the  shoulder  of  the  smallest  peak, 
and  there  Alice's  world  began  and  ended. 


18  273 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

TO   GO,   OR   NOT  TO   GO? 

ALINGHAM  watched  them  from  the  door  of 
his  cabin  till  they  were  one  with  the  shadows, 
the  silence,  and  the  space,  then  he  lighted 
his   pipe,   and   smoked   automatically.      "  Nick,"  the 
old  setter,  who  had  been  showered  with  such  unusual 
attentions  the  entire  evening,   found  it  difficult  to 
resume  the  monotony  of  his  life,  interrupted  as  it 
had  been  by  so  beautiful  and  congenial  a  divinity. 

Why  should  he  not  have  more  head-pattings,  and 
more  assurance  of  his  intelligence  and  the  great 
beauty  of  his  eyes  ?  His  master  was  generous  enough 
with  meat  and  drink,  but  Nick  felt  that  his  life  was 
deficient  in  sympathy  and  those  gentle  amenities 
which,  all  said  and  done,  are  more  than  bones. 
Nevertheless  he  determined  to  try  his  luck  with  the 
graven  figure  that  from  time  to  time  sent  out  huge 
clouds  of  smoke.  Why  should  there  not  be  mutual 
understanding  in  the  home  circle?  But  Nick's  blan- 
dishments met  with  no  response,  —  no,  not  even 
when  he  rested  his  head  on  the  knee  of  the  graven 
figure  and  gave  it  the  wealth  of  his  eyes.  Such 
eyes  as  they  were,  too;  had  not  the  divinity  told 

274 


TO    GO,    OR    NOT   TO    GO? 

him  of  their  beauty?  He  kept  his  head  on  his  mas- 
ter's knee  —  he  knew  the  value  of  persistence  —  and 
when  Alingham  began  to  knock  the  ashes  from  his 
pipe,  he  felt  the  touch  of  a  cold  nose  and  Nick  got 
his  reward. 

"Do  you  miss  her,  old  chap?  So  do  I;  we  are 
companions  in  misery  —  no,  on  second  thoughts, 
we  are  not.  You  Ve  got  nothing  to  be  miserable 
over.  I  should  n't  be,  if  she  had  patted  my  head 
and  assured  me  of  my  innumerable  charms;  but  she 
did  n't,  old  boy,  —  she  merely  asked  me  where  I 
kept  the  knives." 

Nick  heaved  a  long  sigh,  —  the  sigh  of  a  man 
who  has  known  troubles  of  his  own. 

"  But  it  was  beautiful  to  hear  her  skirts  frou-frou- 
ing  about,  was  n't  it  ?  Even  if  she  did  ask  for  knives, 
and  look  'em  too,  by  Jove !  But  she  did  n't  look 
knives  in  the  beginning — no,  how  did  she  look? 
It  would  take  a  poet  to  tell,  and  he  'd  make  a  bad 
job  of  it.  We  can  only  look  at  her  from  afar,  Nick, 
as  your  life-long  enemy  the  cat  may  look  at  the 
king.  She  's  a  great  heiress,  and  if  her  father  buys 
that  mine,  some  day  she  '11  own  the  land  on  which 
our  wretched  shack  is  situated.  Your  master  is  a 
vagabond  reduced  to  living  by  his  rod  and  gun,  - 
he  having  no  wits  to  live  by.  He  is  furthermore  a 
bankrupt,  a  failure,  a  social  cypher,  and  several  other 
unpleasant  things  that  he  won't  hurt  your  feelings 
by  mentioning  — 

Nick's  cold  muzzle  slipped  a  bit  closer  into  Aling- 
ham's  hand. 

275 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

"Oh,  you  don't  mind;  that's  white  of  you,  old 
chap.  But  we  've  got  to  scuttle;  we  can't  keep  our 
cabin  on  her  father's  land,  even  if  he  'd  let  us. 
We  've  got  to  keep  our  pride ;  can't  tamper  with 
that,  can  we,  dogalums? 

"  What  are  you  wagging  your  tail  about  and 
licking  your  lips  for  —  that  there  are  plenty  of  jack- 
rabbits  in  the  neighbourhood?  You  greedy  beggar! 
But  life  's  a  simpler  proposition  to  you,  Nick,  than 
it  is  to  me.  Jack-rabbits  or  no  jack-rabbits,  cotton- 
tails, quails,  partridges,  prairie  chickens,  or  sage-hens 
- 1  know  all  your  arguments.  We  leave  here,  sir ; 
we  go  to  England  and  try  for  some  small  civil 
appointment. 

"What  does  that  whine  mean?  —  that  you  don't 
like  to  go  to  England  ?  Neither  do  I,  my  boy ;  but  we 
can't  stay  here  vassals  on  the  land  of  the  lady  with 
whom  we  happen  to  be  in  love.  We  would  go  now, 
and  not  destroy  the  peace  of  mind  we  have  been  get- 
ting out  of  this  blessed  wilderness,  but  the  beautiful 
lady  would  get  no  supper  on  her  way  back.  True,  we 
might  leave  the  house  in  order,  with  the  mess-box 
stocked,  and  betake  ourselves  eastward,  leaving  a 
polite  note  on  the  pincushion  saying  we  had  been 
called  away  and  we  hoped  she  could  put  up  with 
our  late  residence.  But,  Nicholas,  we  have  no  pin- 
cushion on  which  to  pin  the  note,  and  the  front  door 
does  not  seem  exactly  a  hospitable  sort  of  place  on 
which  to  affix  an  announcement  of  the  departure  of 
the  .host.  And,  Nicholas,  my  boy,  let 's  be  quite 
square  with  one  another,  your  master  would  not 

276 


TO    GO,    OR    NOT    TO    GO? 

lose  the  chance  of  seeing  her  again,  —  no,  not  for 
twenty  years  of  his  life." 


"  Alice,"  said  the  old  cattleman,  as  they  drove 
along  toward  Bingham  in  a  light  buckboard  next 
morning,  the  saddle  horses  having  been  left  at  the 
road  ranch  for  rest  and  refreshment,  —  "  Alice,  I  've 
been  turning  it  over  in  my  head  about  you  and  this 
yere  Englishman ;  if  he  's  been  roominatin'  'round 
the  scenery  because  he  lacks  the  natchrul  gall  to 
offer  to  endow  you  with  his  fryin'-pan,  coffee-pot, 
an'  the  rest  of  his  worldly  goods  —  which,  I  take  it, 
is  few  an'  far  between  —  the  same  is  a  strangely 
modest  play  fer  a  Britisher,  an'  ought  to  be  encour- 
aged. In  all  my  experience  with  'em  —  an'  it  has 
been  abundant  —  I  never  knowed  one  of  'em  to  quit 
the  matrimonial  game  because  the  girl  held  a  full 
hand.  No,  miss,  their  modesty  don't,  in  general, 
expend  itself  in  humility  before  the  fair  sex.  If 
an  Englishman  had  got  the  drop  on  King  Solomon 
in  his  tatytate  with  the  late  Queen  of  Sheba,  what 
would  he  have  done  ?  He  'd  have  said,  '  Mamie,'  or 
'  Bessie,'  or  whatever  the  name  was  —  that  Holy 
Writ  fails  to  record  — '  you  're  not  a  bad  looker, 
by  Jove!  Come  over  an'  fry  my  bacon  an'  eggs  of 
a  morning,  and  while  you  're  at  it,  you  might  clean 
my  boots." 

Alice,  remembering  a  few  London  episodes, 
laughed. 

"  Last  night,  when  I  seen  him  hold  your  hand,  I 
wanted  to  break  his  neck  over  my  knee;  but  when 

277 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

I  seen  him  look  kinder  faded  out  as  he  helped  you 
onto  your  horse,  I  felt  blame  sorry  for  him." 

But  still  she  said  nothing,  and  as  he  looked  at  her 
from  the  corner  of  his  eye,  he  noted  her  pallor. 

"  As  I  round-up  my  recollections  I  come  across 
one  or  two  of  'em  bearin'  the  brand  o'  this  yere 
Britisher.  An'  there  ain't  one  of  'em  to  his  dis- 
credit —  holds  his  liquor  neat  as  a  quart  flask ;  sticks 
to  a  horse  like  a  cactus  burr,  —  a  trial  horse,  too, 
kept  for  the  accommodation  of  strangers,  —  one 
holdin'  the  same  position  o'  honour,  in  the  camp 
to  which  I  have  reference,  as  our  time-honoured 
friend  the  goat  holds  in  the  ha'nts  o'  masonry.  Yes, 
miss,  a  stranger  settin'  that  horse  is  entitled  to  the 
grip  o'  friendship  in  any  settlement  where  men  an' 
horses  is  judged  by  merit.  Tells  a  good  story,  too, 
—  one  to  make  a  coyote  or  even  a  woman  laugh." 

"  Why,  father,  I  believe  you  are  anxious  to  get 
rid  of  me.  You  don't  know  how  superfluous  all 
these  arguments  make  me  feel." 

"  You  got  to  be  settled  some  day,  —  't  ain't  no 
use  in  me  humpin'  my  back  ag'in  it,  —  an'  I  like 
the  idea  o'  that  Englishman's  doubtin'  his  rights 
to  you  as  a  conquerin'  hero.  When  you  told  me 
last  night  that  he  had  never  asked  you  to  marry 
him,  an'  I  saw  the  way  he  looked  as  you  rode  away, 
I  says  to  myself,  '  Caspar,  here  's  some  one  that  loves 
your  daughter  for  herself  an'  won't  be  settin'  up 
nights  waitin'  for  her  old  father  to  die,  or  sug- 
gestin'  to  him  that  he  's  gettin'  old,  and  it  would  be 
a  clearance  to  his  mind  to  make  his  settlements.  It 
ain't  my  way  to  cash  my  chips  till  the  game  is  done, 

278 


TO    GO,    OR    NOT   TO    GO? 

as  I  Ve  said  before,  though  a  heap  o'  son-in-laws 
don't  play  it  that  way." 

"  Daddy,"  said  Alice,  and  there  was  a  return  of 
all  her  old  bantering  manner,  "  it 's  manners  to  wait 
till  you  're  asked." 

That  night  old  Caspar  wrote  a  letter  beginning: 
"  Ld.  Alingham :    Friend  and  Sir  — 

The  abbreviation  of  the  title  he  considered  par- 
ticularly happy,  combining  as  it  did  a  certain  def- 
erence for  the  alien  designation  with  a  republican 
unconcern,  neatly  evinced  for  such  formality,  by  the 
abridgment.  The  letter  was  a  marvel  of  composi- 
tion, orthography,  and  punctuation;  it  taxed  and 
cramped  old  Caspar's  mighty  arm  as  the  felling  of 
a  forest  would  not  have  done.  And  when  he  had 
sealed  and  directed  it,  in  huge,  redundant  chirog- 
raphy,  he  reflected  long  on  the  pangs  of  authorship. 

The  letter  was  sent  by  the  stage-driver,  who 
stopped  three  times  a  week  at  the  road  ranch  where 
Alice  and  her  father  had  spent  the  night,  after  their 
visit  to  Alingham's  cabin.  From  thence  it  was  to 
be  forwarded  by  the  first  traveller  going  that  way. 
Alice  knew  nothing  of  the  letter,  and  Caspar  spoke 
no  more  of  the  Englishman.  He  flattered  himself 
that  he  knew  a  thing  or  two  about  women,  if  he 
knew  little  about  the  composition  of  a  letter;  and 
old  Caspar  regarded  it  as  fine  policy  "  to  let  a  female 
think  she  is  getting  her  head,  when  there  is  no  par- 
ticular reason  for  urging  her  down  a  certain  road." 
So  Alice,  having  no  idea  of  the  diplomatic  machina- 
tions of  which  she  was  the  subject,  accommodated 
herself  to  the  makeshifts  of  the  frontier  town,  and 

279 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

thought  long  and  uninterruptedly,  with  no  idea  that 
she  was  "  getting  her  head  "  for  the  purpose. 

No  place  could  have  been  more  conducive  to 
thought  than  the  "  Ladies  Parlour  "  of  the  dismally 
sophisticated  frontier  hotel  known  as  the  Great 
Western  Palace.  It  had  a  scarlet  carpet  and  blue 
plush  chairs,  whose  corpulence  was  restricted  by 
buttons,  arranged  in  a  geometrical  design,  from 
which  the  plush  sprang  in  obese  diamond-shaped 
patterns.  On  the  back  of  the  door  there  was  a  neatly 
framed  set  of  rules  dealing  chiefly  with  the  penal- 
ties incurred  by  guests  who  attempted  to  evade  their 
financial  responsibility.  It  began  with :  "  It  is  a 
misdemeanour  to  defraud  an  inn-keeper,  punishable 
by  Act  of  Congress,"  etc.,  and  then  dropped  into 
personalities.  There  were  a  few  pictures  on  the 
walls,  belonging  chiefly  to  the  chocolate-box  school 
of  art,  —  ladies  with  faultless  profiles  and  large 
feathered  hats.  Alice  wondered  if  she  would  ever 
be  able  to  eradicate  the  memory  of  this  depressing 
magnificence  from  her  mind. 

The  bar  of  the  Great  Western  Palace  was  directly 
beneath  the  "  Ladies  Parlour,"  which  had  been  placed 
exclusively  at  her  disposal  by  the  management,  and 
all  day  long  the  clank  of  spurred  boots  came  up  from 
below,  mingled  with  clinking  glasses  and  great  gusts 
of  laughter.  From  early  morning  till  late  at  night, 
prospectors  sat  in  the  hotel  office,  with  suspiciously 
rich  specimens  of  mines  of  which  they  were  elo- 
quently anxious  to  dispose.  There  was  no  other 
woman  in  the  hotel  but  Alice,  nor  apparently  in  the 
town,  unless  one  included  the  painted  wisps  of  hu- 

280 


TO    GO,    OR    NOT    TO    GO? 

manity  that  filed  back  and  forth  from  the  dance-hall 
to  the  trading-store. 

Young  and  vicious  was  Bingham,  a  swaggering, 
brawling,  money-spending  youngster  of  uncertain 
parentage  and  vast  wealth.  There  life  was  held 
cheap,  and  what  passed  as  honour,  dear.  Home- 
sick, heartsick  cow-punchers,  sheep-herders,  pro- 
spectors came  to  Bingham  to  forget,  in  riotous  dis- 
sipation, the  loneliness  of  the  desert,  and  to  hear 
again  the  tinkle  of  a  piano  and  to  see  lights  and 
cards  and  drinks  instead  of  scenery.  There  a  good 
woman  might  walk  abroad  at  any  hour  of  day  or 
night,  and  find  some  hundreds  of  top-booted,  som- 
brero-covered cavaliers  to  do  her  lightest  bidding, 
with  the  chivalry  of  crusaders;  and  a  bad  woman 
made  a  crony  of  death  by  reason  of  her  very  frailty. 

Apart  from  the  heat,  the  echoes  of  sordid  dissi- 
pation, and  the  crude  magnificence  of  the  Great 
Western  Palace,  Alice  found  much  in  Bingham  that 
was  interesting.  It  was  the  pivot  on  which  mag- 
nificent possibilities  turned;  opulence  and  indigence 
came  up  with  the  sublime  impartiality  of  prizes  and 
blanks  in  a  lottery.  Some  of  these  picturesque  lads 
who  looked  like  bandits  in  mufti  would  undoubt- 
edly in  the  course  of  a  few  years  be  buying  Watteaus 
and  Romneys  for  wives  who  in  all  probability  would 
have  preferred  chromolithographs.  Alice  saw  them 
going  to  London  for  the  social  game;  the  stakes  in 
New  York  were  not  big  enough.  She  saw  their 
pallid  envy  of  Betty,  —  Betty,  who  had  already 
passed  through  the  eye  of  the  needle,  and  was  en- 
joying the  kingdom  of  —  England. 

281 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

She  had  time  for  more  personal  reflections,  too, 
at  the  Great  Western  Palace,  and  they  were  not  so 
conducive  to  peace  of  mind  as  her  social  specula- 
tions regarding  the  prospectors  and  cattlemen. 

She  was  sitting  one  evening  by  the  window  of  the 
blue  and  scarlet  parlour,  watching  the  mountains 
tower  in  lofty  unconsciousness  of  the  vicious  little 
town  cowering  at  their  feet.  From  the  dance-hall 
across  the  way  came  the  scraping  of  fiddles;  wide- 
eyed,  eager,  the  town  was  hurrying  on  to  the  busi- 
ness of  diverting  itself. 

"  I  think,"  she  said  to  herself,  "  I  am  that  extinct 
product  of  the  human  species,  that  dodo  of  the  race, 
—  a  woman,  just  a  woman.  I  hate  the  very  names 
of  '  career  '  and  '  life-work,'  and  I  am  practically  cer- 
tain the  world  is  not  waiting  for  any  message  from 
me.  Even  the  saving  grace  of  egoism  has  been 
denied  me.  I  am  shamelessly  without  pride  where 
one  man  is  concerned,  and  there  never  was  any  other 
man  — 

"  Of  course,"  she  continued,  addressing  the  small- 
est and  most  approachable-looking  of  the  distant 
peaks,  "  if  I  had  an  atom  of  pride  or  a  scrap  of 
conscience,  I  should  lose  no  time  in  putting  myself 
into  the  hands  of  those  estimable  ladies  who  lecture, 
to  the  battered  fragments  of  slum  wifehood,  on  the 
folly  of  clinging  to  the  man  who  has  kicked  it  down- 
stairs. But  —  cherchez  I'homme,  none  of  us  has  a 
conscience  where  the  right  man  is  concerned.  I 
even  sympathise  with  slum  wifehood  —  I  under- 
stand its  preference  for  the  kicks  of  the  beloved  to 
the  kisses  of  the.  unloved. 

282 


TO    GO,    OR    NOT   TO    GO? 

"  But  let  us  devoutly  thank  Heaven,  Alice  Dean, 
that  we  are  making  this  particularly  disgraceful  con- 
fession to  a  dignified  white  mountain  instead  of  to 
a  more  sympathetic  and  perhaps  more  loquacious 
sort  of  confidant." 

The  rattle  of  the  cracked  piano  over  the  way  at 
the  dance-hall  grew  more  hysterical;  some  one,  with 
a  Durham-like  quality  of  voice,  was  calling  out  the 
figures  of  a  dance  —  the  rhythmical  shuffle  of  feet 
was  borne  along  on  the  evening  breeze,  that  had  a 
suggestion  of  pines.  What  a  mingling  of  defiled 
and  undefiled  floated  in  through  the  windows  of 
the  Great  Western  Palace ! 

A  hand  was  rattling  the  knob  of  the  sitting-room 
door,  which  Alice  invariably  kept  locked,  and  she 
got  up  to  open  it,  a  trifle  resentfully  at  having  her 
revery  interrupted. 

"  Why,  father,  I  did  n't  expect  you  so  early." 
She  was  impressed  with  her  father's  expression;  he 
seemed  to  be  on  particularly  good  terms  with  him- 
self; she  wondered  vaguely  what  he  had  been  buy- 
ing at  half  its  value. 

"  We  got  company  to  supper,"  he  announced, 
but  there  was  a  wealth  of  plot  in  the  brief  state- 
ment. 

"  Indeed,"  said  Alice,  supposing  it  was  some  of 
the  "  Lost  Shoshone  "  syndicate,  "  you  are  a  cour- 
ageous host  to  entertain  at  the  Great  Western 
Palace." 

"  This  here  guest  would  n't  know  if  he  was  eatin' 
prairie  dog  or  prairie  chicken." 

283 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

"  I  suppose  you  've  been  persuading  some  unfor- 
tunate to  take  something  worthless  off  your  hands." 

"  Why,  have  you  seen  him  —  "  Old  Caspar  posi- 
tively blushed. 

''Seen  whom?"  she  asked. 

"  Why,  the  man  that 's  coming  to  supper,  of 
course." 

"  I  have  n't  seen  any  one.  I  Ve  been  talking  to 
the  mountains,  telling  them  secrets." 

"If  you  got  to  talk,  a  mountain  makes  a  blame 
fine  confidant  —  I  always  let  the  other  fellow  do 
the  talking  myself,  or,  at  least,  the  talking  that 
counts.  But  the  identity  of  this  here  guest  don't 
seem  to  worry  you  none,  Alice." 

"  Of  course  I  sympathise  with  him,  —  fried  steak, 
blue  coffee,  —  but  I  can't  be  expected  to  disguise  my- 
self and  warn  him ;  it  would  n't  be  kind  to  the  cour- 
ageous host,  who  happens  to  be  my  father." 

"  Alice,"  and  the  old  cattleman's  eyes  twinkled 
with  a  cunning  almost  diabolical,  "  there  are  times 
when  you  can  feed  a  man  fried  steak  and  blue  coffee 
with  impunity,  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  he  ain't 
in  a  condition  to  know  what  he  's  eatin',  or  if  he  's 
eatin'  anything  —  " 

"  Nice  sort  of  person  you  are  asking  me  to  play 
hostess  to,  I  must  say,  Daddy.  Has  he  been  cele- 
brating getting  the  better  of  you  in  a  bargain,  or  is 
he  just  a  plain  idiot?" 

"  'T  ain't  for  me  to  pass  judgment  on  him,  Alice; 
I  '11  leave  that  to  you,  being  as  he 's  a  friend  of 
yours." 

284 


TO    GO,    OR    NOT    TO    GO? 

Old  Caspar,  for  all  his  bravado,  looked  as  guilty 
as  a  boy  caught  robbing  an  orchard.  He  tried  to 
meet  her  chill  glance  unflinchingly,  but  made  a 
lamentable  business  of  it. 

"  I  suppose  you  mean  Lord  Alingham,"  she  said 
with  a  deliberately  contrived  calmness. 

"  Oh,  I  say  now,  you  are  altogether  too  quick  at 
guessing,  considering  he  's  the  only  man  you  are  ac- 
quainted with  in  a  round-up  of  a  thousand  miles." 

"  One  is  prone  to  jump  at  rather  disagreeable 
conclusions  —  " 

"  Then  don't  jump,  my  dear,  keep  ca'm,"  he  in- 
terrupted her. 

"  But  I  was  going  to  say,  father,  that,  as  you 
came  in,  I  was  deciding  I  would  n't  have  any  sup- 
per. I  've  a  bit  of  a  headache." 

Caspar  decided  on  lightness  and  jocularity,  but 
the  outlook  was  not  promising.  Alice  frightened 
him  with  his  own  expression  of  reserve,  but  he  flung 
danger  signals  to  the  wind  and  blundered  on: 

"  My  pore  child,  and  do  you  care  so  much  as 
that?  Drink  is  the  sole  refuge  of  man  when  his 
heart  is  a  torn  and  lacerated  bull's-eye,  due  to  the 
unfailing  marksmanship  of  love.  But  woman,  lovely 
woman,  entrenches  herself  behind  a  headache  and 
hits  back." 

The  dormant  pride  of  maidenhood,  roughly  awak- 
ened, sprang  fiercely  to  the  attack.  The  fury  in  the 
girl  seemed  to  burn  up  the  red  blood  in  her  veins 
and  left  her  cold  and  white.  Tornado-like  in  sweep 
and  intensity,  she  turned  on  him. 

285 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

"In  Heaven's  name,  what  am  I?  —  Something 
that  will  spoil  on  your  hands  and  must  be  peddled 
to  the  first  man  who  comes  along  — " 

"  Alice,  my  dear,  if  I  have  been  a  blundering  old 
fool,  forgive  me;  but  I  thought  — " 

She  did  not  let  him  finish,  she  was  too  absolutely 
contrite.  "  Father,  if  you  have  asked  this  man  to 
supper,  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  to  bring  him, 
and  -  she  recovered  something  of  herself  — 
"  we  '11  all  go  and  eat  fried  steak." 

Old  Caspar  went  in  search  of  his  guest,  and  when 
he  had  found  him  and  sent  him  to  the  blue  and 
scarlet  sitting-room,  he  sought  for  something  to 
steady  his  nerves.  That  his  plans  had  miscarried, 
there  was  not  a  doubt  in  the  world.  "  Let  'em 
fight  it  out,"  he  said  to  himself  with  real  philoso- 
phy ;  "  they  are  young." 

Alice  waited  for  their  guest  in  chill  dignity;  by 
an  unaccountable  process  of  reasoning,  or  perhaps 
unreasoning,  she  had  arrived  at  the  conclusion 
that  Alingham  was  to  blame  for  her  father's  violent 
partisanship,  and  this  she  resented. 

Her  manner  —  eyebrows  raised,  face  unsmiling  — 
was  so  absurdly  out  of  keeping  with  the  atmosphere 
of  the  Great  Western  Palace  that  it  is  surprising 
its  incongruity  could  have  escaped  them  both.  She 
greeted  him  with  frigid  aloofness,  and  as  he  took 
her  finger-tips  in  the  most  casual  way,  they  might 
have  posed  for  one  of  those  banal  illustrations 
where  supremely  scornful  young  women  make 
speeches  of  surpassing  rudeness  to  men  of  great 
height  and  breadth  of  shoulder. 

286 


TO  GO,  OR  NOT  TO  GO? 

She  thought  he  seemed  a  trifle  haggard;  it  smote 
her  sharply  as  physical  pain,  but  of  this  there  was 
no  evidence,  nor  of  the  fact  that  her  heart  was  thun- 
dering like  a  besieging  mob,  —  thundering  to  let 
down  every  bar  and  chain.  There  was  more  than 
a  hint  of  Mayfair  in  her  accent :  "  And  do  you  find 
this  kind  of  thing  amusing?"  The  sweep  of  her 
eyelids  might  have  included  in  the  diversions  of 
Bingham  the  congested  luxury  of  the  sitting-room, 
or  the  babel  of  the  street  that  floated  up  through  the 
open  windows. 

He  met  her  eyes  unflinchingly.  "  Mr.  Dean  sent 
for  me;  he  is  having  difficulty  in  completing  his 
negotiations  with  the  owners  of  the  '  Lost  Shoshone.' 
They  are  friends  of  mine,  and  he  wants  me  to  talk  it 
over  with  them.  I  was  glad  to  come,  too,  for  another 
reason.  I  am  going  back  to  England,  and  I  wanted 
to  say  good-bye  to  you." 

She  raised  her  eyes  to  his  for  the  fraction  of  a 
second,  and  from  what  she  saw  there,  knew  he  was 
beyond  the  ken  of  her  father's  plotting.  He  meant 
what  he  said;  he  would  go  to  England,  and  she  — 
she  would  stay  here  and  ride  about  the  wilderness. 

There  was  a  wail  of  winter  in  the  night  wind,  as 
it  swept  down  from  the  mountains.  She  tried  to 
face  it  in  imagination,  —  the  early  dusk,  the  long 
evenings,  the  storm-battered  house,  —  but  she  could 
not,  it  was  too  dreary. 

Her  eyes  were  down,  her  voice  was  very  low: 
"Must  you  go  back?" 

"  I  think  so.  Nothing  is  ever  gained  by  tucking 
one's  head  in  the  sand,  you  know.  I  Ve  been  think- 

287 


LORD    ALINGHAM,    BANKRUPT 

ing  it  out  since  I  saw  you.     I  am  going  to  try  for 
some  small  civil  appointment." 

All  the  glow  and  softness  of  the  love  that  had 
grown  but  the  deeper  in  repression  was  in  her  eyes 
as  she  gave  them  to  his.  "  Please  don't  go/'  she 
pleaded. 


THE   END 


288 


" 

A    000  111  276    2 


